Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This was supposed to be a C-rank mission.

Blood drips onto the ground, a soft sound in the sudden post-battle quiet. Kakashi can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears. It’s unnerving; the blood, the ringing. His hearing isn’t working right. His blood is dripping onto the ground.

This was supposed to be a C-rank mission. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt.

He presses his hands against his leg, his palms becoming warm and slippery with blood. His heartbeat throbs underneath his torn skin. The wound is large and deep, but Kakashi is too numb to feel the pain just yet, too filled with adrenaline.

He ducks his head, coughs. The air is thick with smoke, heavy with the smell of blood and death and burned grass. He knows that Sakura is standing on the other side of the glade, but he can only barely see the red of her dress through the smoke.

At Sakura’s feet lie three dead bodies, enemies that she took down. Behind her lie two more slack figures – her teammates. Both Naruto and Sasuke were knocked unconscious somewhere during the fight. Kakashi had been too busy taking out their enemies at that moment; taking the time to worry about his students would’ve probably cost him his life. If it weren’t for Sakura’s protection, both Naruto and Sasuke would’ve been killed. Half of Team Seven could’ve been wiped out in the course of a single battle.

It pisses Kakashi off, it really does. This was supposed to be a C-rank mission. This was supposed to be a positive experience for Team Seven. Kakashi’s students had been nervous about leaving the village after their disastrous encounter with Zabuza a couple of weeks prior; this mission was supposed to offer them an easy victory and help build their confidence.

So they’d been sent out to help at a harbor in the South of the Land of Fire – essentially, it was a glorified D-rank mission that was only ranked C because the team needed to leave the village for it. Simple and safe. They’d taken the mission, they’d finished the mission, and they’d gone on their way back home…

And then Team Seven got attacked by a dozen of bandits that were B-rank or higher, among which an S-rank missing-nin.

Kakashi grits his teeth and tightens his grip on his upper leg, struggling to make the bleeding stop. They can’t stay here; that missing-nin managed to use an explosive tag before Kakashi killed him. A single explosive tag can’t do much damage as it’s fueled by nothing but chakra, but it’s not the damage that Kakashi is worried about – it’s the noise. The tag exploded right next to Kakashi’s head, so he got to personally experience how loud it was. He doesn’t want to think about how far the sound must’ve carried, or what kind of trouble it will attract. He has to get away from here, has to get his team to safety.

He straightens up, ignoring how the blood loss makes dark spots appear in his vision. His steps are halting and uneven, but he somehow manages to get across the glade, feet stumbling over bodies and slipping in blood-soaked mud.

Sakura raises her kunai when she sees him approach, her chakra signature agitated. In a way, that’s a good thing; if Kakashi had actually been an enemy, her startled instincts would’ve likely saved her life.

Still, it’s not very comfortable to have a terrified twelve-year-old point a sharp object at you. Kakashi raises one hand in a placating gesture, keeping the other hand pressed firmly against his leg. “Sakura,” he says. “It’s all right.” He can’t hear his own voice, but he knows it doesn’t sound as reassuring as he meant for it to sound. He wants to use that chipper child-friendly tone that he’d been perfecting, but it feels wrong in a situation as serious as this. Still, he makes an attempt to sound like a teacher instead of a threat when he repeats: “It’s all right. It’s just me.”

Sakura lowers her weapon, but instead of calming down like Kakashi hoped, her chakra signature becomes possibly even more disturbed. “Kakashi-sensei,” she whispers; Kakashi can only tell what she’s saying because his Sharingan can read lips. “Kakashi-sensei, is- is that your blood?”

Right. Kakashi lowers the hand that he’d reached out in an attempt to be reassuring – though he now realizes that his hand is covered in blood and likely wasn’t at all reassuring to look at – and presses it against his wound again. “It’s a cut from a sword,” he replies, because he knows that lying about it would only make matters worse. “Deep, but not dangerous. It’s nothing that will kill me.”

Sakura nods slowly, but her eyebrows are still pinched together, anxious. Knowing Sakura, she’s probably bursting with questions, but there’s no time to answer them right now.

Kakashi shakes his head, cutting her off before she even has the chance to say anything. “Worry about it later,” he says. “We have to go. That explosion from just now is bound to draw the attention of everyone in the vicinity.”

Sakura flinches at his tone, but she nods again. “I tried to wake Sasuke and Naruto up,” she says, “but they’re… not waking up. Naruto was under a genjutsu, I think, so I tried to break his genjutsu – but it- it didn’t work.”

Kakashi crouches down next to Naruto’s and Sasuke’s bodies, awkwardly stretching out his wounded leg in front of him. It seems that Sakura was successful in breaking Naruto’s genjutsu; his chakra pattern isn’t disrupted like it would be if he were under genjutsu. Still, both his and Sasuke’s chakra signatures are faint and weak. Sasuke fought with all he had – he collapsed from chakra exhaustion somewhere in the middle of the battle. And Naruto was put under genjutsu, which is a very taxing experience, even for someone as energetic as Naruto. He, too, is probably passed out from exhaustion.

They’ll have to be carried, Kakashi realizes, and he knows immediately that that’s an impossible task. He can barely keep his own body upright, let alone carry someone on top of that. And Sakura may be strong enough to carry one of her teammates, but she’s too small to carry both, and it would seriously slow her down.

That leaves them with one good option. Kakashi weaves a couple of signs with his blood-covered hands and presses the palm of one hand against the ground. He has to let go of his wound in order to sign; for a moment, blood spills freely from the cut again, and it brings with it a wave of lightheadedness. Kakashi briefly squeezes his eyes shut, trying to avoid passing out. When he opens his eyes again, Pakkun and Bull are standing in front of him, summoned by his seal.

Pakkun looks around, the movements of his head quick and alarmed. He asks Kakashi something, but dogs’ lips are much more difficult to read than humans’. Kakashi can vaguely make out “where are we” and “doesn’t look like a C-rank”.

“It’s a long story,” Kakashi replies tiredly. “There’s no time to explain. Two of my students are injured, and I’m hurt as well, and it’s not safe to stay here.” He turns to his other ninken; “Bull, could you carry Sasuke? Sakura, you’ll have to carry Naruto.” Kakashi knows that Sakura doesn’t like Naruto much, but Naruto is lighter than Sasuke and Kakashi wants to avoid slowing Sakura down. Personal preferences – crushes – have no priority here.

Sakura visibly pales, but she puts her kunai away and stoops down to hoist Naruto onto her back regardless. Kakashi notices that she’s moving stiffly, and that she barely moves her right arm, but he brushes it off. If Sakura were injured, she would’ve said something already; she’s smart enough for that. The fighting probably just tired her out.

“Pakkun, you’re going to have to lead the way,” Kakashi says. “An explosive tag went off right next to my head – it might be a while before my hearing comes back. If you hear any more trouble coming, you’ll have to tell me.” It sucks to need to rely on Pakkun’s hearing instead of his own, but it’s what he has to do to survive. Admitting that he can’t hear anything is better than allowing someone to sneak up on them.

Pakkun nods his head. “Sure thing,” he replies, or that’s Kakashi’s best guess at what he’s saying.

Sasuke is securely lying across Bull’s back by now – as the strongest of the pack, Bull has a lot of experience carrying people – so they’re finally ready to leave. Kakashi pushes himself to his feet. The fabric of his pants scrapes unpleasantly against his wound; he barely manages to stifle a wince. He has to channel some chakra to the muscles of his leg just to keep himself from falling over.

Kakashi ignores the worried looks that Sakura and his ninken are sending him. “Let’s go,” he says. “We have to get as far away from here as possible, before--”

And before he can finish his sentence, he’s roughly cut off by a shuriken flying at his face. He ducks away with a grunt that’s equal parts startled and pained.

Sakura pulls out a kunai, but that won’t help them much. They can’t fight; they don’t have enough energy left to meet the owner of that shuriken, let alone to make it out alive afterwards.

There’s only one thing they can do:

“Run!”

Chapter Text

It takes Team Seven an uncomfortably long time, a smoke bomb and a well-aimed genjutsu before they manage to shake off their pursuer. Even after they leave their pursuer knocked out at the base of a tree, they run for another while before Kakashi feels it’s safe to stop.

And then, once they’re finally at a comfortable distance from their now-unconscious attacker, Kakashi allows his team a hard-won and much-needed break. At last, it’s time to catch their breaths and regroup.

Sakura is panting so harshly that Kakashi can hear her through the ringing in his ears. She lets Naruto slide off her back as soon as they stop running; he flops unceremoniously onto the ground. Sakura drops her backpack next to him and falls to her knees, entirely exhausted.

Kakashi would love to sit down as well, but he knows that if he does so, he won’t be able to get up again. So he stays on his feet and calls down at Sakura, “Are you okay?”

Once again, he knows that his tone isn’t as gentle as he’d intended it to be – now that he’s no longer running for his life, Kakashi feels his leg start to throb worse with every passing second. It’s difficult to sound friendly when he’s gritting his teeth against the pain.

It takes Sakura a moment to reply, but eventually, she nods. “I’m fine,” she says in between gasps for breath. “Just glad that we can finally stop running.”

“That makes two of us,” Kakashi murmurs in return. “You should rest. We’ll stay here a while.” Ideally, he’d like to stay here until Naruto and Sasuke come to, but he has no way of knowing how long that’s going to take. He just hopes he’ll have enough time to bandage his wound before they get wrapped up in another skirmish.

Sakura doesn’t ask any questions, so Kakashi considers their conversation over. He leans his shoulder against a nearby tree and stares into the distance. If there were anyone close enough to attack them, then his Sharingan would pick up on the unfamiliar chakra signature. The forest still looks blissfully empty.

“We should be safe here for now,” he tells Sakura, and he turns around to face her – but she’s already fallen asleep, curled into herself on the grass. Kakashi can’t blame her; he did tell her to rest, after all.

He finds himself pausing, his mouth quirking into the smallest of smiles. It’s not unusual for him to see his students sprawled out on the ground, asleep. For a moment, he lets himself imagine that they’re safe. That they’re home, and that they’ve simply just finished a particularly exhausting training session or something. Just for a moment, he allows himself to forget that they just almost died.

And then his leg gives a sudden twinge of pain and Kakashi is forcefully dragged back to reality. He cringes, hissing through his teeth.

Pakkun looks up at him. “You okay?” he asks, and Kakashi notices to his relief that Pakkun is making an effort to speak clearly. “You should do something about that wound of yours.”

“Yeah,” Kakashi replies, clutching his leg. “I’m painfully aware of that.”

He leans his back against the tree, trying to gather the strength to walk; he’d prefer not to take care of his wound right here. His students lack the mental resilience that adult shinobi would have, and they’re definitely not the ANBU that Kakashi is used to working with. If one of his students wakes up and sees their teacher stitch up his own leg, then that’ll probably cause some psychological damage.

“Bull, please look after my students for a bit,” Kakashi says, straightening up. “If anything happens, alert me. Pakkun, come with me.”

Kakashi finds a spot far enough away to have some privacy, but nearby enough that he’ll still be able to help if something happens. Finally, he eases himself to the ground, propping himself up against a tree. With a sigh, he closes his eyes and rests the back of his head against the trunk. He can feel his exhaustion catching up with him; he’d been using his Sharingan practically non-stop for the past hour or so, and it’s starting to take its toll on him. The blood loss isn’t helping, either.

He could probably fall asleep right here and now, but he can’t let himself doze off just yet. Stifling a groan, he sits up and pulls his first-aid kit from his backpack.

“Could you keep an eye on our surroundings?” Kakashi asks Pakkun. “Since I’m still pretty much deaf, and all.” He tries to sound lighthearted, to conceal the fact that it makes him feel deeply uneasy that he can’t rely on one of his senses. Something inside him fears that his hearing will never come back – taken out by an explosive tag, of all things. He shoves that thought away so that he doesn’t have to look at it.

Pakkun grumbles an affirmation, and Kakashi clicks open the first-aid kit. He pulls his mask down and takes a painkiller. He can only hope that it’ll help somewhat. He quickly tugs his mask back into place.

Frowning, Kakashi studies his leg. After he’d knocked out their pursuer, Kakashi had taken a moment to tie a spare jounin sweater around his wound to absorb the blood. It hasn’t necessarily helped the wound stop bleeding, but it’s made sure that he didn’t leave a trail of blood leading to his location. If that had happened, things definitely would’ve gotten ugly.

He presses the sweater down on the wound, wincing. The cut is still bleeding pretty badly; he can feel the warmth of the blood underneath the fabric. It hurts, too. Kakashi silently curses the absence of a medical-nin on his team.

He breathes out slowly, trying to focus. Slowing down his heart rate and his chakra flow should help stop the bleeding. It’ll cost him some chakra, but that’s just the way it is. He can’t afford to lose much more blood than he already has.

It takes a while, but the wound slowly stops bleeding. Carefully, Kakashi peels the sweater off the wound and puts it down on the ground. It’s gone dark with blood. His gloves have gotten soaked as well; he throws them to the side.

The fabric of his pants is practically glued to the wound, sticky with drying blood. He slowly pulls the fabric away so that he can take a look at the wound, biting the inside of his cheek the whole time.

His whole right upper leg is a mess of crusted blood, all red and brown. It’s hard to see where the cut ends and his skin begins. It smells, too; sharp and coppery and overwhelming.

Kakashi pours the water from his flask over the wound and rubs away the grime, cleaning the wound as well as he can. It would’ve been more effective to use a Water ninjutsu instead, but the current level of his chakra is already unpleasantly low. He should spare his chakra for now. He’ll refill his water flask with a Water ninjutsu once he’s rested a bit.

Exposed to the air, the cut stings even worse than before. Kakashi sits back, breathing hard. It takes him a moment before he’s gathered the courage to look at the cut.

The wound is deep and ragged, and large – it starts at the outside of his thigh, right below his hip, and runs all the way down to the top of his knee. Kakashi realizes, his blood briefly running cold, that a slash like this could’ve easily taken off his leg. He also realizes with a distant annoyance that his shuriken holster is no longer on his leg. He guesses it got sliced in two as well. What a waste of perfectly good shuriken; he’ll probably never get those back, now.

At any rate, there’s no doubt that he’ll need stitches. He’d hoped that the wound somehow wasn’t as serious as he’d thought, but it seems that that isn’t the case. Carefully, he pushes against the edge of the wound. The edges are ragged and red; the wound was left by a blunt blade. His opponent’s sword was dirty and didn’t look well-maintained. It didn’t slice as much as it tore. This cut will be a pain to suture. Best to get it over with quickly.

As Kakashi bends over the first-aid kit again and fishes out the supplies needed for stitches, Pakkun hovers into his field of vision. He looks worried – well, as worried as his frowny face allows him to look.

“Stitches, huh?” Pakkun asks. His words carry a solemn kind of weight. “Your leg got messed up pretty bad, didn’t it, Kakashi?”

Kakashi huffs a wry laugh. “Sure did.”

“Do you want me to get help?” Pakkun asks. “I could run back to Konoha and fetch you a medical-nin. Seems a lot easier than walking back home yourself. Or you could summon Uhei or Urushi – they could get help even faster than I can.”

Kakashi shakes his head. “You wouldn’t make it there,” he says tiredly. “We’re too far away from Konoha.” Even at full speed and without rest, it would take a ninja hound two or three days to return to Konoha from here – but the dogs can only stay summoned for about a day. His ninken would never reach the village before they’d disappear again.

“How about a clone, then?” Pakkun suggests. “You could send a clone to get help.”

“Any clone I make would have a large hole in its leg. It wouldn’t be much more use than I am.”

“Have one of your pups make a clone, then.”

“They’re my students, not my pups,” Kakashi corrects him, his tone mild. “And it’s above their skill level to sustain a jutsu for that long. Clones dissipate when the caster falls asleep or passes out. My students would have to stay awake for days.” Not to mention the fact that all of his students are already exhausted. Even if they did somehow manage to stay awake for that long, there’s a very real possibility that they’d succumb to chakra exhaustion before their clone even reached Konoha.

Pakkun’s ever-present frown deepens even further. “Aren’t there any villages nearby?” he asks. “Any place where they might have a doctor?”

“Only Hidden Villages have people who know medical ninjutsu, and you know that. It’s futile to seek out a civilian doctor. And I’m not going to risk traveling to another country to get medical attention. Considering everything I did during the Third War, foreign hospitals will probably flat-out refuse me.”

Pakkun grumbles something that looks an awful lot like a swear word. “You’re a man of a thousand jutsu,” he says. “There’s got to be something you can do.”

“Not much, really. No point in using jutsu right now. Not when my chakra level is this low, at least.” Kakashi sighs again. “There’s no other way. I’ll have to walk home.”

Pakkun bares his teeth in frustration. “At least swear to me that you’ll send one of the ninken to get help, as soon as you’re close enough to Konoha,” he says. “This isn’t the first time you’ve dragged yourself home after a mission, barely able to stand upright. In fact, I’ve seen you do that more times than I can count.”

“You’re a dog, Pakkun,” Kakashi mumbles as a reply. “You can’t count.”

“You get the point.” Pakkun leans his front paws on Kakashi’s good leg, staring him straight in the eye. “Just promise you’ll send one of us to get help, instead of pushing through your injuries like a brat. You’re stupidly stubborn when it comes to stuff like this.”

“Fine. I promise.”

“Good.” Satisfied, Pakkun steps off Kakashi’s leg. “I’ll keep you to that promise. You’re far too reckless for your own good; you’ll get yourself killed someday, and I actually prefer you alive.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say, Pakkun,” Kakashi replies drily. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Pakkun only snorts as a response. Whether it’s an amused sound or an annoyed one, Kakashi can’t quite tell.

Pakkun leaves him alone after that, keeping a close eye on their surroundings. Kakashi is once again left to face the task of sewing together his own leg. It’s nothing he’s never done before – he’s got an unfortunate amount of experience with giving himself stitches. Three cheers for ANBU solo missions.

He cleans the needle with an alcohol wipe and tries to clean the blood off his hands as well as he can. The forest floor is anything but sterile, but he tries to get everything as clean as possible nonetheless. It’d be a miracle if he didn’t get his wound infected at some point, but he has to at least try to prevent it. He has enough experience to know that walking home with an infected wound is a terrible, terrible experience.

He slathers the edges of the cut in numbing cream. Despite the anaesthetic, the wound continues to hurt, throbbing deep underneath his skin. Clenching his jaws, Kakashi pulls the edges of the wound together. The cut stares back at him, red and curved like a smile.

A tiny drop of blood wells up when Kakashi sticks the needle through his skin, and then a second drop of blood when the needle emerges on the other side of the wound. Logically, he knows that it should hurt, but it doesn’t; the numbing cream is doing its job. The numbness always unsettles him a little. It makes his leg feel like it isn’t his. He’s glad that he can’t feel anything, though. The uneasiness is a small price to pay for that.

It takes twenty-five stitches to close the wound – by the time Kakashi finishes the last stitch, the sun has already started to set, and the anaesthetic has started to wear off. Subconsciously, he’s been biting the inside of his cheek; his mouth tastes vaguely of blood, and the inside of his mask has become unpleasantly damp with sweat.

The blood loss and the exhaustion make his hands tremble, so the wound ends up a jagged line, the stitches not quite even. It’ll probably become an ugly scar, but then again, Kakashi never expects battle wounds to heal prettily. His skin is already riddled with scars; adding another scar to his extensive collection doesn’t bother him much. If he can keep himself from bleeding out, then that’s good enough.

He wraps his upper leg in bandages, carefully. His work looks surprisingly neat, considering the bloody mess that his wound used to be. If it weren’t for the large tear in his pant leg and the drying blood stains on his clothes, it’d almost look like he was never hurt at all.

Satisfied, he puts the medical supplies back where they belong and stuffs the first-aid kit and his blood-soaked sweater back into his backpack. It’s uncomfortable to put his gloves back on – they’re stiff with dried blood – but being a little uncomfortable is still marginally better than leaving his hands unprotected.

“I’m done,” he calls at Pakkun, flexing his hand a few times. “Let’s go back to my students.”

It’s not until Kakashi tries to get up that he realizes how tired he is. His knees buckle when he tries to get his legs underneath him; he gracelessly crashes back down to the ground. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, hoping that that’ll help his head stop spinning.

Pakkun puts a paw on Kakashi’s hand, a clear gesture of concern. “I’m all right,” Kakashi gasps out in response. “I guess the blood loss just got to me. Just give me a minute.”

It takes a long while before the dizziness ebbs away – but even when Kakashi no longer feels like he’s going to faint, he’s still left feeling awfully weak. His body desperately needs rest, and that realization brings with it a spike of frustration. He’d hoped to continue traveling as soon as he took care of his wound, but that feels impossible now. He needs sleep, and preferably lots of it.

Reluctantly resigning himself to that fate, Kakashi hauls himself to his feet, this time more carefully. His upper leg feels stiff – he can feel that he’s limping. The short walk back to his students feels much longer than it did before.

His students are still where he’d left them, still lying on the ground. Bull greets him with a huff, and Kakashi absent-mindedly pats his head. Bull did a good job guarding Kakashi’s students. Thankfully, there was nothing to guard them from.

Kakashi lowers himself to the ground between his students, leaning back against a tree. Naruto’s head is right next to Kakashi’s knee, most of his face obscured by his mess of hair. There was a scrape on Naruto’s face when Kakashi last saw him; the scrape has already healed. Kakashi is distantly jealous.

He looks his students over one by one. Once he’s made sure that they’re each still breathing, he allows his eyes to fall shut. They’re all still alive. All he needs to do now, Kakashi thinks with a tired kind of optimism, is make sure that they stay that way.

Exhaustion overwhelms him once again, this time more strongly. He barely has the energy to ask his ninken to stand guard before he drifts off.

Chapter Text

“Guys? Hey, guys? When we get home, can we go and get ramen together?”

It was a sunny afternoon in June, and the members of Team Seven were traveling through the woods in the South of the Land of Fire. They’d finished their mission at the harbor that morning, and now they were on their way back home.

Their client had told Team Seven that he was more than happy with their work, and Sakura was still glowing with pride from the compliment. More than that, she was glad that she didn’t have to haul around ship cargo anymore; their mission at the harbor had been hard work. Now that their mission was finished, it was like a weight had dropped off her shoulders, quite literally.

As far as Sakura was concerned, it was a beautiful day – well, apart from Naruto’s neverending chattering, of course.

“I’m being serious, you know!” Naruto continued when nobody reacted. “We’ve been eating gross mission rations for ages. When I get home, I’m going to eat some actual food, and I thought it’d be polite to invite you to come with me!”

Sasuke scoffed. “I swear, ramen is all you ever think about, Naruto.”

“And being an ass is all you ever think about,” Naruto retorted, sticking his tongue out at Sasuke.

“Guys,” Kakashi called over his shoulder, his tone non-committal. “Keep it civil, yeah?”

“Yeah, keep it civil, Sasuke,” Naruto said. Sasuke glared at him, but Naruto pointedly ignored him. “I’m just saying that we should do something to celebrate, once we get back home. We’ve finished our first successful mission in the field, after all. That’s probably the coolest thing we’ve done so far!”

“Don’t celebrate just yet,” Sakura said. “We may have finished our mission, but we still have to get home. We’ll still be traveling for a couple of days – anything could happen during that time. Don’t jinx it.”

Despite her disapproving words, Sakura could feel excitement bubbling underneath her skin as well. This mission was going infinitely better than the last time they set foot outside the village. So far, the number of violent missing-nin they had come across remained at zero. It was getting easier and easier to let herself believe that they’d make it home without any incidents, this time.

Kakashi hummed. “It’s true that we’ll have to keep our guards up until we get home,” he said. “But once we get there, you should allow yourself some relaxation. I think going out for food is a good idea. It’s a good way to celebrate your success as a team.”

Naruto beamed. Sasuke rolled his eyes, but he didn’t seem sincerely annoyed. Sakura couldn’t help but smile. Team Seven was in high spirits. It was indeed a beautiful day.

It was a beautiful day, up until the moment that it wasn’t.

Their calm conversation was interrupted by someone crying out. “Hey!” a man’s voice sounded, clearly scared. “Hey, shinobi! Help!”

The man was standing a bit ahead, at the edge of a open spot between the trees. Another person, this one masked, stood in front of him, pointing a knife at his chest. It wasn’t a shinobi’s blade. This was probably a robbery, Sakura thought, or maybe an escalated argument – at any rate, this man was in danger.

She shared a look with her teammates. They didn’t need to talk about it; they weren’t going to let this slide.

“Let’s do some more good deeds today,” Naruto said excitedly. With that, Team Seven landed in the glade, kunai and shuriken in hand.

And before their feet had even touched the grass, they were surrounded by a large group of people – and each of those people was armed. There had to be a dozen of blades pointed at them.

Sakura felt her mouth drop open. As she watched, the man who’d cried out for help pulled out a knife as well. This was a trap. They’d walked right into a trap.

But, Sakura realized with growing relief, none of these people bore shinobi weapons. One carried a sword, but none of them had kunai or shuriken. Most likely, these were all civilians. Team Seven may be surrounded, but maybe this wasn’t as bad as it looked.

“Shinobi!” the guy with the mask called. “This is a robbery! Surrender all of your money and belongings!”

Kakashi exhaled a breath that sounded much like a laugh. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, gentlemen,” he said with a shrug. “We don’t have much on us – we won’t get paid until we get back to our village, you see. So I’m afraid we won’t be able to help you out.”

One of the men pointed a kitchen knife at them. “Your weapons will do,” he said. “Hand them over.”

“Hey, now,” Kakashi replied, “we need those to do our job, you know.”

“He’s mocking us,” one of the bandits growled, gesturing dangerously with his weapon. “He’s goddamn mocking us--”

“Wait.” This came from the man with the sword – he hadn’t spoken yet, and his voice was low and muffled by his mask. For some reason, each bandit visibly stopped and listened to him. It gave Sakura the chills for a reason she couldn’t explain.

“You’re all thinking too small,” he said. “Don’t you know how much money a shinobi’s head is worth? Especially a jounin’s?”

Sakura’s grip on her kunai tightened. That wasn’t a normal thing for a civilian to know.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Kakashi stiffen ever so slightly. He took a step to the right, so that Team Seven formed a triangle. Sakura recognized it as a defensive formation – a loose one, but a defensive formation nonetheless.

Next to Sakura, Naruto laughed loudly, clearly oblivious to his teammates’ cautiousness. “Do you really think you can take us down that easily?” he said. “We’re shinobi, you know! We can beat your asses in three seconds flat--”

His voice trailed off with a sudden gasp. Sakura turned to look at him – just in time to see him crumple to the ground, his eyes rolling back into his head. It only took her a split second to realize what was happening.

“Genjutsu!” she shouted, bringing her hands together in a ‘release’ sign. Her heart raced. She’d been right. These weren’t ordinary bandits. If one of them knew genjutsu, then he had to come from a Hidden Village. And that meant--

“It’s a missing-nin!” Kakashi yelled. Before anyone else had the chance to react, he threw himself at the missing-nin. The missing-nin blocked his attack with his sword. “Sasuke, Sakura!” Kakashi called, pushing against the missing-nin’s sword with two kunai. “Take Naruto and get out of here!”

Sasuke bared his teeth, his Sharingan glinting. “Like Hell I’ll retreat,” he hissed. “I’m staying here.”

“Don’t!” Kakashi shouted back, but a group of the bandits was already approaching Sasuke, their weapons gleaming in the sunlight. It was too late to run now.

Sakura readied her kunai. She’d intended to guard Sasuke’s back, but he just frowned at her. It was like he was angry at her simply because she was there. “Sakura, get out of my way.”

His words felt like a punch to the chest, but there was no time to focus on that now. Gritting her teeth, she turned around and forced her way towards Naruto. She may be inexperienced in battle, but she could at least defend her teammate. Best to follow Kakashi’s orders and keep Naruto safe.

Someone was already standing over Naruto. The guy didn’t pay attention to Sakura at all; it was easy to plunge her kunai into his side and elbow past him.

She gathered Naruto into her arms and ran, ducking underneath blades. Behind her, she heard the sudden ‘whoosh’ that she recognized as Sasuke’s Fireball jutsu. The heat made the backs of her arms and legs sting.

Holding her breath in the smoke, she made it to the edge of the glade. They were somewhat hidden here, behind trees and shrouded in smoke, but Sakura could still see her teammates fight. She was nearby enough that she could jump in and help them if they needed her help.

She laid Naruto down in the bushes. Focusing her chakra, she made a ‘release’ sign above his head – and nothing happened. Naruto’s eyebrow twitched a little, but he didn’t open his eyes. Sakura couldn’t even be sure that he’d moved as a reaction to the genjutsu being released; there was a cut running diagonally through his eyebrow that looked deep. The twitching could just be an unconscious reaction to the pain.

Sakura frowned. There was no way she’d gotten this sign wrong; she’d been so embarrassed about getting caught in a genjutsu during their Bell Test that she’d practiced the sign hundreds of times afterwards. Still, she tried again. It was no use. Naruto wasn’t waking up.

She directed her gaze back to the glade, where the smoke was clearing up a little. A couple of bodies lay on the ground, charred and burned by Sasuke’s Fireball. Out of the twelve bandits, there were now eight left.

Kakashi was still fighting the missing-nin, so far only with taijutsu. It made sense, now that Sakura thought about it; if either of them used ninjutsu against his opponent, he risked hitting his comrades as well. On top of that, the missing-nin was very clearly looking down, away from Kakashi’s face – avoiding eye contact with the Sharingan, so that Kakashi couldn’t put him under genjutsu. Maybe the missing-nin had read up on the abilities of the Sharingan somewhere, like Sakura had. Taijutsu was their best option.

So far, neither of them seemed to be winning the fight. Sakura would’ve assumed that the sword gave the missing-nin an advantage, but as far as Sakura could tell, he hadn’t been able to hit Kakashi yet. Kakashi was plenty quick enough to dodge the missing-nin’s swings. Judging by the deep frown on his face, though, it was taking all the focus he had.

And it looked like he’d need to divide his attention soon. As Sakura watched, the remaining bandits started approaching Kakashi from behind, trying to surround him. Sasuke managed to cut two of the men down, but taking on eight opponents was too much for a single genin, even if Sasuke was Sasuke and the bandits were civilians.

A kick to the stomach sent Sasuke rolling across the grass. Sakura stepped forwards to help him, but she hesitated – he’d told her to stay out of his way. If she helped him, she’d probably only make him angry.

Sasuke scrambled back up, visibly grimacing. He formed the signs for a Fireball jutsu. His fireball was large and powerful, but most of the bandits managed to dodge it. They’d learned to expect the jutsu, Sakura realized. It wasn’t as effective anymore.

Sasuke swore loudly and leaned his hands on his knees, panting. He was clearly starting to tire himself out – he’d used two large fireballs and had been fighting opponents much bigger than he was. He couldn’t have much energy left, let alone chakra.

Kakashi had told them all to withdraw, but the bandits were still trying to gang up on him. It was too risky to let him fight those opponents by himself. If something happened, if either he or Sasuke got hurt, Sakura would feel guilty if she’d done nothing to help.

Screw Kakashi’s orders. Screw Sasuke’s demand to stay out of the fight. She couldn’t let her teammates deal with this themselves.

She rushed back into the fight, cutting at enemies’ legs and sides and whatever else she could reach. Sasuke appeared at her side soon, scowling. “What are you doing?” he said. “I told you to stay out of it. You’ll only--”

“Watch out!”

Sakura grabbed Sasuke’s wrist and pulled him to the side, out of a kitchen knife’s reach. Sasuke angrily pulled himself loose from Sakura’s grip. Instinctively, he turned around and wove a sign.

And he fell to his knees, his chakra finally run out.

Sakura gasped as Sasuke’s shoulder hit the ground as well, but there was no time to be startled. The man with the kitchen knife took another swing at them – Sakura blocked the knife with a kunai, straining against the bandit’s strength.

The bandit dropped to the ground suddenly, his throat cut by another kunai. Kakashi emerged from behind the man, frowning deeply. There was something in Kakashi’s gaze that scared Sakura. “Get out of here,” he said, voice low. “I mean it.”

Sakura turned and dragged Sasuke onto her back. She carried him back to where she’d left Naruto; thankfully, he was still there.

Two bandits followed Sakura, but she fought them off with kunai and shuriken, relying solely on instinct. One of the shuriken nicked a bandit’s throat. She didn’t realize until much later that this was her first kill. She saw the blood and the way the bandit struggled on the ground, but she didn’t process at that moment that he was dying.

When she laid Sasuke down beside Naruto, he looked up at her from behind heavy eyelids. His eyes were black again, instead of red. “I told you,” he hissed, “to stay out of it…”

His eyes fluttered closed again, his face frighteningly pale and slack. Sakura looked at him a bit longer, just to make sure that he was still breathing. For some reason, she’d feared that he wasn’t breathing. Like he’d stopped breathing that day on the bridge.

A sudden flash of light caught her attention. She looked up again, peering out over the bushes. The glade was shrouded in smoke again, and within that smoke were flashes of blue and fiery yellow. Kakashi’s ninjutsu. He was fighting all out, now that his students were no longer in the way.

Sakura could barely focus her eyes on him – he was too fast. He never held still for longer than a second, just long enough to slit a throat or punch a chidori through a chest. There was no hesitation to his movements.

The most chilling thing was the silence. Apart from the chirping of Kakashi’s ninjutsu and the dull thuds of falling bodies, it was completely silent. Kakashi was an efficient fighter, and that realization made a shiver run down Sakura’s spine.

Their fight against Zabuza had been violent, sure, but she’d never seen Kakashi fight like this before. Somewhere deep down, she must’ve forgotten that their goofy teacher was an experienced shinobi – someone who’d killed people, and who was good at killing people.

There wasn’t much time to ponder it. When she looked up, Sakura stared right into the eyes of a bandit. He was still a couple of meters away, but he’d spotted her and he was barrelling towards her. Sakura saw to her shock that his gaze was full of glee.

She threw a kunai, but the man dodged, the blade zipping over his shoulder. Two shuriken followed, but those too missed their goals. When Sakura reached for another weapon, her fingers only met the fabric of her weapons pouch. The pouch was empty.

She froze. She should never have let her guard down. If she’d just paid more attention to her surroundings, she would’ve seen this coming, and she would’ve had more time to think--

The bandit was closing in on her. Sakura’s fist clenched almost of its own accord. A memory resurfaced of a jutsu she’d seen in a textbook somewhere: using chakra to enhance her strength, to take an opponent out with a single punch. The book said that the jutsu was too advanced for genin, but she had no time to think about that, no time to consider the risks. She had to do something, anything, now.

Chakra rushed to her right arm, warm and powerful. Sakura looked up, yelling wordlessly. She felt, all of a sudden, dangerous. To her satisfaction, fear sparked in the bandit’s eyes.

Before she realized that she’d moved, her fist connected with the man’s face.

There was an audible crack, loud and nauseating. It was more of a feeling than a sound, Sakura’s whole arm jolting with the sensation of something breaking, splintering. She was still yelling. The bandit was entirely silent.

The man stayed upright, leaning heavily onto her hand. Sakura realized numbly that her fist had moved a couple of centimeters farther than she’d expected. The man’s facial bones had not stopped her hand.

Sakura pulled her hand back; the bandit dropped to the ground like a rag doll. Sakura swallowed thickly. She was panting, she realized, and her arm still felt too warm. Much too warm, and somehow sickeningly wrong. It dawned on her that she’d felt something break earlier. The force of her punch must have broken her arm.

She cradled her arm to her chest, her face contorting into a grimace. Her eyes stung; she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t let herself do that. She needed to keep paying attention. She was already weak to begin with, and now she was hurt as well. If she let her guard down again, she would die, and Sasuke and Naruto would die with her.

She crouched down and fumbled a kunai from Sasuke’s weapons pouch, clutching it in her left hand. She could hide behind these bushes and try to catch her breath, but she got up again regardless. It didn’t feel right to cower like this when her teammates were defenseless.

The sounds of metal against metal still rang out across the glade; Sakura could see the silhouettes of Kakashi and the missing-nin flutter around each other in the smoke, exchanging blows so powerful that it made sparks fly off their weapons. She could only recognize Kakashi by the glow of his Sharingan. It was hard to see anything else.

She squinted, eyes scanning the smoke for more silhouettes, but she couldn’t see if there were any bandits left. Before she could be sure, though, the relative quiet was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice yelling, followed by an ear-piercing bang. For a split second, the glade was fully cast in light.

Her head whipped around – she saw the last sparks of the explosion sizzle out. It must’ve been an explosive tag. In the wake of the noise, everything seemed eerily silent. Even the sounds of battle had died out.

She squinted again, just in time to watch both Kakashi and the missing-nin fall to the ground. Her heart stuttered in her chest, but she stayed where she was, her feet firmly planted on the ground. If she’d miscalculated the amount of bandits that were still left, then rushing to help Kakashi could be a death sentence for the entirety of Team Seven. She needed to wait.

It stayed silent for a minute, then two minutes. The glade in front of her felt almost like a photograph, so motionless and silent. Sakura couldn’t take her eyes off the shadows on the ground. There were a thousand thoughts running through her mind, but she could grasp none of them. All she knew was that she was scared and in pain and unbearably overwhelmed.

And then, one of the shadows moved. Dragged himself up on his knees, shuddering.

Sakura steeled herself with whatever strength she still had left. She wished she could be sure that it was Kakashi who was getting up, but it could just as well be the missing-nin. It was almost impossible to know for certain. She had to prepare for the worst.

As the figure got to his feet, Sakura caught a glimpse of bright red – the Sharingan. Her shoulders automatically sagged in relief, but she caught herself. There was still no way to be sure that this wasn’t a henge. She still couldn’t assume that this was actually Kakashi.

The figure slowly got closer, limping heavily. Sakura raised her kunai, staring when Kakashi got close enough for her to see his eyes. She searched, near-desperately, for a sign that this was Kakashi and not a missing-nin.

She also searched, and this terrified her more than anything, for a sign that this was her teacher instead of the dangerous shinobi that she’d seen in battle today. In some dark place of her mind, maybe Kakashi’s ruthless side scared her even more than the missing-nin did. Somewhere deep down, she almost couldn’t imagine that this man, wild-eyed and covered in blood, was the same person as their mild-mannered eccentric sensei.

“Sakura.” That was Kakashi’s voice, though hoarse and wavering. He sounded off, and it immediately made Sakura’s blood run cold – but she realized that he’d just stood right next to an explosion, and it probably messed with his hearing. If he couldn’t hear himself speak, then that could also explain why he didn’t quite sound like himself.

“It’s all right,” he continued softly, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t all right, but there was something in his tone that Sakura recognized. She finally realized, too, that an enemy wouldn’t know her name, or at least wouldn’t prioritize remembering it if it was shouted during a battle.

Sakura finally lowered her kunai and swallowed down a sob. Any relief that she felt was entirely overshadowed by misery. Her arm hurt so bad that she wanted to throw up, but that pain was nothing compared to the knowledge that she’d been able to do nothing to keep her teammates from getting hurt. She’d been so helpless today.

She could say with certainty that this was the worst day of her life.

How naïve that she’d considered this a beautiful day an hour ago.

Chapter Text

Night falls, though Sakura doesn’t notice it happening. The dogs stand guard as Team Seven rests, watching the forest vigilantly.

Sakura doesn’t sleep through the night; the pain from her broken arm keeps interrupting her dreams. Well, it’s not like her dreams are all that relaxing, either. Her mind keeps repeating yesterday’s fight, again and again, until she’s certain that every second of the battle is engraved permanently into her brain.

The combination of pain and nightmares makes it very hard to sleep, even though Sakura is too tired to keep her eyes open. She tries to bear the pain for a while – “A shinobi is one who endures”, she keeps repeating in her head – but she gives in eventually and fumbles a painkiller from the first-aid kit.

Kakashi doesn’t wake up, not even when Sakura takes the first-aid kit from his backpack. Which is weird; during their mission to Wave, he was a terrifyingly light sleeper, but now, he doesn’t react at all. It freaks Sakura out enough that she stops and checks if he’s still breathing. He’s not dead, she concludes, though he’s certainly sleeping like the dead. Sakura can’t really blame him. If she had fought with as much violence as he has, she would’ve needed some sleep, too.

She takes the painkiller and somehow manages to fall back asleep afterwards, though her sleep remains restless. Kakashi wakes her up somewhere early in the morning. It’s still dark when she opens her eyes, and Sasuke and Naruto are still unconscious. Irrationally, she would’ve preferred to keep sleeping until the boys had woken up and her arm had stopped hurting so much – she wishes she could keep sleeping until everything is okay again. Reality isn’t so kind, though.

Kakashi says that they have to continue traveling; the ninken only stay summoned for a day, and then it takes a day before they can be summoned again. Considering that they can’t move without Bull carrying one of the boys, they should travel while the ninken are still here.

Sakura eats a little of her mission rations; despite the painkiller, her arm still hurts bad enough to make her nauseous, so there’s not much left of her appetite. She only eats because she knows she needs the energy. The few bites of ration bar are an uncomfortable weight in her stomach.

Kakashi frowns a lot during breakfast, probably thinking about some way to solve their numerous problems. Sakura stays quiet, doesn’t disturb him. She barely speaks a word during breakfast, nor after that.

She knows she should tell Kakashi that her arm is broken. It’s the most logical thing to do. But their troubles are already great enough as they are. For now, she thinks it best to keep her injury hidden.

So she hauls Naruto onto her back – using all the strength in her left arm, wincing when she accidentally jostles her right arm – and they go on their way.

Kakashi leads the way, limping heavily. Their pace is slow, and Sakura is thankful for that. She’s too tired to run. She’s tired, and Naruto is heavy.

She tries to distract herself by matching her footsteps to Bull’s, focusing on the steady rhythm. The dog trudges along beside her, Sasuke’s unconscious body sprawled across his back. Sakura watches Sasuke with anxiety coiling in her gut. She knows she shouldn’t be this scared; she’s seen people pass out from chakra exhaustion before. It happened to Kakashi during Team Seven’s very first real mission.

But Kakashi was only knocked out for an hour or so, back then. Sasuke has been unconscious for much longer than that. Whatever that means, it almost can’t be good news.

Sakura shakes her head, trying to shake the thought from her head. For some reason, it’s easier for her worried thoughts to run wild right now. It takes Sakura a while to realize that that’s because it’s so quiet. Apart from the soft sounds of their footsteps and Sakura’s own breathing, it’s almost entirely silent.

Normally, Naruto’s talking would’ve interrupted the quiet by now. Sakura keeps expecting that he’ll say something dumb any second now. He’d probably complain about why they’re not going any faster. And from there, it’d only take a minute or so before they’d be talking about food again.

Sakura’s eyes sting. She stares at the backs of Kakashi’s ankles, watches the way he leans most of his weight on his left leg, how he drags his right leg forwards in an irregular rhythm. It distracts her from the urge to cry, but it doesn’t make the stinging in her eyes go away.

She has never seen her team in such a terrible state before. Her teammates are barely still recognizable as themselves. Sasuke is vulnerable and Naruto is silent, and all she knows for certain about her teacher is that she knows absolutely nothing about him.

With her growing upsetness, her arm starts to hurt worse again, muscles tensing involuntarily around broken bone. A sob catches in her throat. Pakkun turns to look at her but doesn’t say anything. Kakashi doesn’t look back at all; the sound was probably too quiet for him to hear.

Not that Kakashi had spared her half a glance that morning, anyway. If he had, he would’ve noticed that her arm is bruised and swollen. He would’ve noticed that she only barely managed to drag Naruto onto her back, grimacing awfully the whole time. It was dark during the morning, but the Sharingan should be able to see through that. He just didn’t pay attention well enough to notice.

Maybe he did notice, Sakura thinks bitterly. Maybe he did notice and just didn’t care enough to say anything. Or maybe this is some sort of punishment for disobeying his orders yesterday. There’s no way to be sure; Sakura doesn’t dare predict his reactions, anymore. Not after the way he fought yesterday. That ruthlessness – Sakura couldn’t have predicted that if she tried.

Another stab of pain forces itself through her arm, and she cringes. The change in her balance makes Naruto shift on her back; she has to hunch over as not to drop him. The new position makes it more difficult to breathe, Naruto weighing down on her even more than before.

Her eyes water. This is too much, she finds herself thinking. Her mind is crying out for sleep and for medical attention. More realistically, she wants to sit down, at least until her arm stops hurting so bad.

But if she wants to sit down and rest, she’ll have to ask Kakashi. And then she’ll have to explain why – and she doesn’t want to tell Kakashi that her arm is broken. He has enough things to worry about; she doesn’t want to add to his long list of problems. She was raised not to be a bother, especially not to her teachers.

On top of that, she’s pretty sure that Kakashi doesn’t yet know that Sakura’s arm is broken. If he finds out that she’s hurt – that their situation is even worse than he’d initially thought – then it’d make sense for him to get frustrated. And Sakura finds that that idea scares her a lot.

So she keeps walking, not saying anything, while the pain in her arm gets worse by the minute. It feels like someone is squeezing it, like her arm is being twisted and pulled and poked all at the same time. She’s shivering, she realizes when she hears her breath come out shakily.

She tries to distract herself again, but the pain is undeniable at this point. Her breathing quickens. She’s not used to enduring pain; whenever she got hurt during Academy training, she was always healed quickly with medical ninjutsu. This agony comes and goes in waves and it is exhausting.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and when she opens them again, her vision in covered in dark spots. Sakura’s feet stumble on the uneven ground. Suddenly panicked, she calls out. Her voice sounds small even to her own ears.

“Kakashi-sensei--”

Naruto hits the ground before Sakura has consciously registered that she’s shoved him off her back. The next thing she knows, she’s on her knees, throwing up.

In the uneventful repetitiveness of travel, Kakashi’s mind is working on a million things.

Whether they’ll have enough food to make it back to the village. Whether he’ll have enough chakra to refill their water bottles later today. What ninken to summon once Bull and Pakkun run out of time and disappear. And underneath all those problems stays his worry about Naruto and Sasuke, as persistent as the ringing in his ears.

Equally persistent and distracting is the pain that continues to plague his leg. There’s a lot of pressure on the wound; his leg had swollen a lot while he slept, and Kakashi has no doubts that it’s still swelling. He’s already had to loosen his bandages once today, and he’ll probably need to do it again. It’s not necessarily a sign of infection, so that’s something, but it still frustrates him that his wound slows him down so much. The longer it takes them to get home, the more likely that they’ll run out of food before they get there.

These are the questions that Kakashi keeps turning over in his head, trying to come up with answers. Until his thoughts come to a sudden and screeching halt.

He doesn’t hear it as much as he feels it, a dull thud behind him. He whirls around, his Sharingan snapping open, one hand reaching for a kunai – but behind him is not an enemy.

He’s turned around just in time to see how Sakura hits her knees and throws up. Which is, frankly, so different from what he’d expected that he simply stops and stares, his mind blank.

It takes him a moment before he shakes himself. He sweeps his Sharingan across the surrounding trees, searching for the enemies that he’d expected to see, but there’s nobody there. They’re still safe.

Kakashi takes a step towards Sakura, putting his kunai away. Pakkun raises an eyebrow at him; Kakashi responds with an ANBU sign. “Stand guard.” Until Kakashi figures out what is wrong with Sakura, his full attention will be on her.

He crouches down to Sakura’s level, trying to look her in the eye. She’s looking at the ground, her arms wrapped around her chest. “Hey,” he says – he aims for a concerned tone, but his words probably sound surprised more than anything. “Hey. What happened?”

Sakura shakes her head and sniffles. Her bottom lip is trembling so badly that she can’t keep her mouth closed. She’s clearly trying really hard not to cry, and through all of Kakashi’s confusion, he feels a sharp pang of empathy.

After a moment of hesitation, he reaches out a hand and carefully rubs her back. “We should take a break from walking,” he says. “Just until you feel a little better.”

Sakura tenses up underneath his hand. “I’m sorry,” she says, and Kakashi doesn’t even need his hearing to notice the sob in her voice. “I don’t want to slow us down. We- We can keep going…”

She starts to get up, but Kakashi lays a hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her back down. “It’s clear that you’ve reached your limit,” he replies. His voice is a little more forceful this time, just to make sure that she’ll listen to him. “Don’t push yourself even further. You’re too smart to do something dumb like that. Just sit down for a bit.”

Sakura sniffles again. “Sorry,” she repeats, but she doesn’t protest. Kakashi carefully guides her away from the puddle of vomit on the ground. She’s shaking like a leaf.

“So, what happened?” Kakashi asks again, once Sakura is sitting down and seems a little calmer. “Did you get sick, or--”

His voice trails off. Something’s off about Sakura’s arm. It’s difficult to see, because the Sharingan can only see in shades of red and it really messes with his color vision, but Sakura’s right forearm doesn’t seem to be the same color as her left arm.

Slowly, because he’s suddenly very alarmed, he closes his Sharingan. With his normal vision, it’s stupidly obvious what’s wrong with her arm.

A good portion of Sakura’s forearm is purple.

Kakashi had thought that she was just hugging her arms around herself to try and calm herself down, but he sees now that she’s actually cradling her right arm to her chest, trying not to move it. He feels his eyebrows draw together in a frown.

“Sakura,” he says, and he tries not to sound too startled, “let me see your arm, please.”

Sakura flinches. Slowly and with a barely stifled whimper, she holds out her right arm. She doesn’t look Kakashi in the eyes.

Still frowning, Kakashi inspects her lower arm. It’s swollen and bruising badly. The bone still looks straight, for which Kakashi is eternally grateful, because setting a bone in the field is not pleasant. The injury is undoubtedly painful, but it could’ve been much worse.

His relief is overshadowed by guilt, though. Sakura has been walking around with a broken arm since yesterday, and Kakashi didn’t notice. His left eye is colorblind, sure, but that’s no excuse for an oversight this big. How did he not notice? Does he really spend so little time focusing on his students?

“We’ll have to immobilize your arm,” Kakashi says, looking up at Sakura again. “It’s broken.”

She turns away from him, sinking her teeth into her lip. “I know.”

“You could’ve told me, you know,” Kakashi replies softly. “If I’d known that you’re hurt, I wouldn’t have asked you to carry Naruto.”

“There wasn’t any other way to move him.”

Kakashi sighs. She’s right, no matter how much he wishes that wasn’t the case. “Still,” he says, “breaking your arm really sucks. I can’t imagine that it was comfortable to leave it untreated for this long.”

Sakura sucks in a breath and looks up at him. Her eyes are filled to the brim with tears. “I know I should’ve told you,” she says, and Kakashi can tell that her voice is quivering, “but everything’s already so awful. Sasuke and Naruto are hurt, and you’re hurt as well… I just- I didn’t want to make things even worse than they already are.” She looks at the ground. “Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not--” Kakashi shakes his head. “I’m not mad at you.” If he’s mad at all, he’s mad at himself. Somehow, he’d given his student the idea that walking around with a broken arm was a better option than simply talking to him. He’s going to have to do some serious thinking about where he went wrong.

Sakura’s eyes flicker up to him again, and she nods. “Okay.”

Kakashi nods back. “Good,” he says. “Let’s take care of that arm of yours, then.”

It’s been a while since Kakashi last made a splint, and he’s glad to say that it’s a lot easier to make a splint now than it was last time. He still remembers vividly how one of his fellow ANBU had gotten his leg caught in some Earth ninjutsu in the middle of Sand’s desert. The guy’s leg had been broken in several places. In the barren nothingness of the desert, with the nearest medic kilometers away, they’d had no choice but to use the sheaths from their wakizashi as a splint. It wasn’t pretty. The medics that treated him afterwards were quite exasperated about it.

Kakashi tells this story to Sakura as he looks around for a couple of straight and sturdy branches. It doesn’t take him long at all to find two branches that are long enough; here in the middle of the forest, there are branches aplenty, contrary to the desert that he found himself stuck in last time. He cuts the branches down to the right size with a kunai.

Sakura keeps silent as Kakashi bandages the two sticks to her arm. Kakashi’s hands are still shaking from the blood loss and he fumbles a few times, but Sakura barely even winces.

He’s about to compliment her on how high her pain threshold is when he looks up and sees that Sakura is crying.

And once again, Kakashi didn’t notice.

He pauses and silently curses himself. “Does it hurt?” he asks.

Sakura nods, and Kakashi has to remind himself: Sakura isn’t ANBU. She’s not like the people he’s used to working with – she’s a genin. Genin don’t patch themselves up when they get hurt, aren’t trained to keep a tough façade even when they’re in pain. Hell, if all goes well, genin don’t get hurt at all. They shouldn’t need to patch themselves up in silence or breathe through their pain.

“It’s a-all right,” Sakura manages to say in between sobs. “It hurts, but that’s not why I’m crying. I don’t- I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s just…”

“It’s all a little too much to handle?” Kakashi fills in for her, gently. When she nods, he continues: “I know. Anyone would be overwhelmed in a situation like this.” He’s having a hard time keeping it together himself, but he decides that Sakura can do without that information. “I don’t blame you for freaking out about it.”

If he’s honest, he would’ve expected Sakura to break down much earlier. But she kept it together until now, while she went through a whole bunch of stuff that a genin should never have to go through. Maybe she’s tougher than Kakashi expected.

Sakura wipes at her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know that shinobi aren’t supposed to cry. It’s the rules.”

“Ah, well,” Kakashi replies, carefully wrapping a bandage around her hand, “that rule is more of a guideline, anyway. It’s not like crying is punishable by law, you know.”

Despite Sakura’s tears, a laugh bubbles up from inside her. “I guess that’s true.”

Kakashi finishes the splint without saying anything, allowing Sakura some time to stop crying. It seems to be easier for her to dry her tears now; it dawns on Kakashi that she truly wasn’t crying because she was in pain. She only cried because she was scared that Kakashi would get angry at her. And, well, that honestly makes a lot of sense. Sakura’s Academy scores were about as high as they could get. Kakashi can imagine that she’s never made a teacher angry in her life.

He carefully ties the ends of the bandage together and sits back. “There,” he says. “The splint is finished. It’d be ideal if I had something to make a sling with, though…”

Sakura sniffles and gestures at Naruto. “I’m pretty sure Naruto got an old fishing net from a fisherman we met at the harbor,” she says. “He wanted to use it to make traps, or something. Maybe that could work?”

Somehow, it doesn’t surprise Kakashi that Naruto’s mind was on pranks while he was supposed to be working. Kakashi finds the fishing net balled up at the bottom of Naruto’s backpack – it’s weird to rummage around in the kid’s backpack while he doesn’t react to it at all. Kakashi can’t help checking Naruto’s chakra signature again as he zips the backpack closed. It’s still weak. Stronger than before, but still weak.

The net turns out to be a perfect sling; more than large and sturdy enough to support Sakura’s arm and immobilize her elbow. Kakashi ties the corners of the net behind Sakura’s neck. “Who would’ve thought that Naruto’s obsession with pranks would help us someday?” he murmurs to himself, and Sakura laughs.

They stay there for a few more minutes, to eat something and to come up with a plan. It’d be unreasonable to let Sakura carry Naruto anymore; Kakashi will have to do that himself from now on, even though his leg can barely carry Kakashi’s own weight, let alone another person’s weight on top of that. Or he’d have to summon another ninken, which would drain more of his chakra. At any rate, it’s all a big mess, and it’s a recipe for a massive headache.

Sakura quietly watches him ponder. “If I’d been stronger, then I wouldn’t have broken my arm,” she says after a while, mostly to herself. “We wouldn’t be in such a mess.”

Kakashi raises an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Sakura says, her eyes once again glued to the ground, “I broke my arm when I punched an opponent. I channeled chakra to my arm to be able to punch better, but I used the jutsu incorrectly. If I’d been a better shinobi, none of that would’ve happened. If I hadn’t broken my arm, we would still be traveling right now. I’m sorry.”

Kakashi feels both of his eyebrows shoot up. “Hang on,” he says, shaking his head. “Let me get this straight. You punched a guy so hard that you broke your arm?”

“I wouldn’t have broken my arm if I hadn’t messed up the jutsu,” Sakura murmurs.

“I don’t think you messed up the jutsu,” Kakashi says. “I think you performed the jutsu so well that you became too strong for your body to handle.” He huffs an incredulous laugh. “You punched a guy so hard that you broke your arm – you’re apologizing for being too weak, but that doesn’t sound like weakness to me. Sounds to me like you simply have a lot of strength that you don’t know yet how to use.”

There’s an idea prickling beneath the surface of his mind, a big and important idea, and suddenly Kakashi understands what Gai means when he talks about how exciting it is to be a teacher.

“You know what?” Kakashi tells Sakura, who is now watching him, wide-eyed. “When we get back to the village, I’ll teach you how to use that jutsu in a way that won’t hurt you. I think you’re much stronger than you think you are, and you have the potential to become so much stronger than that.”

When they get back on the road, there’s no trace left of tears on Sakura’s face.

Chapter Text

Team Seven continues their journey in equally slow manner. Kakashi carries Naruto on his back. It isn’t easy; he has to constantly channel chakra to his bad leg, strengthen it, in order to walk at all.

He gets tired of listening to the ringing in his ears at some point, so he decides to teach Sakura some ANBU hand signs. The signs will be a useful means of communication in case Kakashi’s hearing doesn’t come back until after their mission, or if it doesn’t come back at all.

He’d planned to only show Sakura the basic signs – “attack”, “retreat”, “hide”, “wait” – but she’s a fast learner. It takes her less than two hours to learn and remember all thirty hand signs. It helps that they’re all one-handed signs; it doesn’t matter that Sakura can’t use one of her hands, because that hand would normally be holding a weapon.

The rest of the afternoon, she practices reacting to signed commands and asking simple questions, which gives Kakashi a break from using his Sharingan. They both keep their minds busy, and it’s a welcome distraction from focusing on their various aches and pains.

Still, all the distraction in the world can’t change the fact that Kakashi is injured and has marginally less blood in his body than he should have, and that he continues to constantly use up chakra – so by the time late afternoon rolls around, Kakashi is horrendously tired.

They finally stop walking when Pakkun suddenly halts and turns around, a solemn look on his face. “Bull and I are almost out of time,” he says.

“Yeah. I know.” It’s been almost twenty-four hours since they were summoned, after all.

Pakkun bares his teeth, an expression of frustration. “If I could stick around, I would.” He takes a few steps towards Kakashi, looking between him and Sakura. “Hang in there, Kakashi. You, too, pup. You’d all better still be alive by the time I get back.”

To Kakashi’s distant amusement, Sakura gives a bewildered nod. He can’t hold back a smile. “We’ll try our best not to die,” he says. “Thanks for your help, Pakkun.”

“Well, someone has to protect your troublemagnet ass--”

And with a trailed-off sentence and a puff of smoke, Pakkun and Bull are gone.

Kakashi sighs and lowers Naruto to the ground. “We’ll set up camp here,” he tells Sakura. “We can’t travel any further, not right now.” His body feels heavy with chakra exhaustion; he’ll have to rest before he can summon any other ninken again. Hell, he’s not sure he can walk much longer.

He sits down with a huff, shrugging out of his backpack. Finally, he allows the muscles in his leg to relax, letting go of the tense control he’s kept over his chakra over the past hours. Without chakra to make it stronger, his leg feels heavy again, difficult to move. A deep ache hums underneath his skin; Kakashi tiredly rubs the side of his leg and fishes the first-aid kit from his weapons pouch.

Sakura is preoccupied shrugging off her own backpack, so Kakashi tugs down his mask and takes a painkiller without her seeing. By the time she next looks at him, his mask is back up.

She sees him put the first-aid kit away, and she frowns a little. She sits down in front of him and signs the sign for “question” at him.

Kakashi quirks an eyebrow at her, but indulges her anyway. “Go ahead,” he signs back.

She taps against her leg, then signs “good”, and then the sign for “question” again: “Is your leg okay?”

“It’s not too bad,” Kakashi replies out loud, because there’s no designated signs for that. “Just a little sore. It’ll be fine with some rest.” He hopes so, at least.

Sakura signs back “good”, and Kakashi huffs an amused laugh.

“You don’t need to sign all the time, you know,” he says. “It’s only necessary when other means of communication are dangerous, like during stealth missions.”

“I know,” Sakura replies; Kakashi has to open his Sharingan again to know what she’s saying. “It’s just that you’ve been using your Sharingan to read my lips the whole time. That doesn’t seem like an effective use of your energy.”

“I guess so,” Kakashi replies. He pauses; “Wait, how did you know that my Sharingan can read lips?”

Sakura’s face turns a bright shade of pink. “Well, uhm, I read up on the Sharingan when Sasuke got his,” she says. “I borrowed every book on doujutsu that the library had available.” There’s something vaguely panicked in her gaze when she looks Kakashi in the eyes. “Please don’t tell Sasuke about that. I have a feeling he wouldn’t like it.”

Kakashi hums a noise of affirmation; Sasuke seems to barely stand Sakura as is, let alone if he found out that she probably knows more about the Sharingan than he does. Still, Kakashi can’t deny that it’s smart of her to look into a teammate’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s a little problematic that she used the library as a way to find out more about her crush, but, well, teenagers will be teenagers.

“Beside that, it was just obvious,” Sakura says, clearly eager to move on from the topic of her miniature intel gathering. “Even if I hadn’t known anything about the Sharingan beforehand, it’s not hard to notice that you open the eye whenever someone talks.” She looks up at Kakashi. “Is your hearing really that bad, sensei? Can you really not hear someone if you’re not reading their lips?”

There’s pity in her gaze, and Kakashi involuntarily grimaces. He turns away; he’s seen that look more than enough times in his life. He saw it in people’s eyes when he lost his father, when he lost his eye, when he lost his teammates. He’d thought that he’d finally reached a moment in his life when he’d never need to be pitied again.

Before those thoughts have a chance to swallow him whole, he clears his throat. His voice is carefully steady when he speaks – professional, as though he’s giving his ANBU squad an update on his status, as though he’s giving them an assurance that he’s not too hurt to be relied on.

“As of right now, I can’t hear much of anything,” he says, still looking away. “I can make out loud sounds sometimes, but that’s all. For now, that’s fine. I can rely on my Sharingan.”

When Kakashi looks back to Sakura, the pity in her eyes has been replaced by shock – which, possibly, is even worse. “That’s pretty bad,” she says, eyebrows pinching together. “Do you think it’ll be okay?”

Kakashi shrugs, a gesture that looks much more tense than he wants it to look. “There’s a good chance that my hearing will go back to normal over time,” he says, his tone clipped in an attempt to hide his discomfort, “or that it can be fixed with medical ninjutsu. My hearing is not our biggest problem by far.”

“I… No, I guess it’s not.” Sakura looks at the ground. Kakashi thinks for a moment that she’s going to leave it at that, but then she asks carefully: “Kakashi-sensei, did I do something wrong? Should I not have asked?”

That catches Kakashi off guard; he may be uncomfortable, but he definitely didn’t mean for Sakura to notice. He pauses, unsure how to react. The way Sakura looked at him reminded him of some truly awful times, but that’s not her fault. How does he explain that to her without opening up a whole can of worms about his past, though?

In the end, he just shakes his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. “Your questions simply reminded me of something unpleasant. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.”

“Oh.” She seems reassured, and she’s also observant enough not to ask any follow-up questions. Kakashi is grateful for that. “Let’s drop the subject, then.”

“Yeah, it’s probably for the best not to think too much about it,” Kakashi agrees, vaguely relieved. He adds, more lightly: “Just remember not to stand too close to explosive tags. That’s probably the most important thing you should take away from this.”

Thankfully, Sakura laughs. Her laugh is almost immediately followed by a yawn. Which makes sense – she only got a few hours’ worth of sleep, after all, and it’s been an extraordinarily tiring day. “You can sleep, if you need to,” Kakashi says. “I’ll stand watch.” It’d be more practical to summon a ninken to stand guard, but Kakashi really shouldn’t spend any more chakra than he already did. He can only hope that some rest will get his level of chakra higher than it is now – if it doesn’t, they won’t be able to travel.

“Get some rest,” he tells Sakura, trying to shake off that anxiety. “I’ll wake you up in an hour or four.”

Sakura nods. “I can stand watch after that,” she says, “so that you have a chance to sleep as well.” She yawns again. “Like how we all slept in shifts on our way back from Wave.”

Her expression is all rational; there’s not a single hint of pity, this time around. She’s not offering to keep watch because Kakashi is noticeably hurt and exhausted – it’s simply because they’re humans, and humans need sleep to function.

“Fine,” he replies, and Sakura nods back at him.

She props herself up against a tree, her broken arm resting on her stomach. “Would you please wake me up if Sasuke or Naruto wakes up?” she asks, her eyes already starting to fall shut.

“Of course.” Kakashi isn’t optimistic enough to assume that that will happen, though.

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Sleep well,” Kakashi replies, but she’s already drifted off.

He stands guard until after the sun has set, watches the sky behind the treetops turn pink and orange and then dark blue, making way for starlight and a pale round moon. Once the last of the sunlight has faded, it’s his Sharingan that peers through the dark, looking for chakra signatures. He should really wake Sakura up and get some sleep, but she probably needs her rest more than he does – she’s not used to functioning on little sleep. Sitting here and doing nothing also kind of counts as resting, he reasons.

He uses the quiet moment to eat a few bites of a ration bar, just enough to take the edge off his hunger. His water flask is empty, but Sasuke and Naruto’s flasks are still reasonably full; after some debating, Kakashi takes Sasuke’s water flask. If Sasuke reacts to chakra exhaustion the same way as Kakashi did when he was his age, Sasuke won’t be conscious enough to need his water flask any time soon, anyway.

He sits, his leg propped up on his backpack. The swelling finally has a chance to go down. When he gathers the courage to change his bandages, he notices that the cut doesn’t look as bad as it did yesterday. It’s a relief; walking all day on a wounded leg isn’t exactly an ideal thing to do when you want that leg to heal.

All things considered, he’s not feeling too terrible. There’s a headache pressing against the inside of his forehead, courtesy of the blood loss and his Sharingan, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. Most of the pain from his wound is dulled by the painkiller and the fact that he’s finally sitting down. He’s still shaky with chakra exhaustion, but he’s been through a lot worse.

It’s calming, somehow. There’s nothing he needs to do right now except keep watch. So he stretches out his senses as well as he can, searches for possible threats. There’s some semblance of peace in the stillness of the forest around him.

Still, underneath this relative peacefulness, Kakashi still feels tense. He keeps fearing that he’ll catch a glimpse of some unknown chakra signature somewhere in the woods. He can’t get wrapped up in another fight – if that happens, he’s not sure how much he can do to protect his students.

Somewhere deep down, he wishes this were a solo mission. Somewhere even deeper down, he misses being alone on an ANBU mission, misses the times before he’d met his students. Back then, only his own life would be lost if he failed. Other than that, he didn’t have anything left to lose, or at least that’s what he thought back then.

Now, on the other hand, he has a lot to lose. He eyes his sleeping students, the responsibility weighing heavy on his shoulders. Their lives lie in his hands. If he screws up, there’ll be much bigger consequences than just him dying.

He sighs and braces a hand on his knee, ready to push himself upright. It’s probably for the best to wake Sakura up and continue traveling. He’s rested up a little, and he feels strong enough again to carry one of his students and to summon a ninken to carry the other. Peaceful as it is, he doesn’t like sitting around. The sooner they get to the hospital, the better.

That’s the plan – until he turns around and sees Naruto staring at him, his eyes wide and unblinking.

“Naruto?” Kakashi asks, turning to face him. “You were knocked out for a pretty long time. How are you feeling?”

Naruto silently raises a hand to rub at his eyes. He moves slowly, like he’s in a daze, and Kakashi is increasingly certain that the kid didn’t process a single word of what Kakashi just said. It’s unsettling, Kakashi realizes, to see Naruto like this: Kakashi hadn’t realized how loud and energetic Naruto normally is until the moment he’s not.

“Hey, Naruto?” he prompts again. “Talk to me. Are you feeling okay? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

When Naruto finally speaks, he seems so quiet and confused that he barely seems like himself.

“Kakashi-sensei, is- is this real?”

Chapter Text

“Do you really think you can take us down that easily? We’re shinobi, you know! We can beat your asses in three seconds flat!”

As soon as those words left Naruto’s mouth, it seemed like time stopped. The bandits in front of him froze, the leaves on the trees quit fluttering in the wind, a bird halted in midair. It was like something changed in the air around Naruto, although he couldn’t exactly describe what that change exactly was. He figured it was just the adrenaline rush of battle. It was probably okay to feel a little weird when you were about to beat someone up.

The feeling lasted only for a moment. Then, Naruto blinked and his enemies were no longer frozen in place.

The bandit with the sword chuckled, as if Naruto’s threat was funny to him. He kind of seemed to be the bandits’ leader, bigger and stronger and a bit more intimidating than the rest. Naruto decided that this guy was going to be the first to get his ass kicked.

“Kicking our asses within three seconds, huh?” the guy said. “That’s ambitious.” He didn’t sound particularly impressed, which was probably an attempt to piss Naruto off.

“You may wanna take that back,” Naruto replied, springing into fighting stance. “Underestimating me is a pretty dumb opening move.”

He couldn’t keep a smile off his face. This was exciting. He’d thought that nothing interesting was going to happen during this boring C-rank, but here he was, face to face with a bunch of bandits.

The bandit balanced his sword in one hand, pointedly not even looking at Naruto. “Say, genin,” he said, “telling someone how quickly you can take them down is a good threat, but it’s not really all that intimidating when you’re clearly too inexperienced to live up to your words. How about I show you what I can do in three seconds’ time? I’m betting I don’t need more than three seconds to take out that team of yours.”

Naruto’s excitement was now overtaken by a fiery determination. This bandit had just threatened to kill Naruto’s teammates, and Naruto wasn’t going to let that happen. Team Seven’s battle on the bridge in Wave had seen two people die while they weren’t supposed to die. This time around, Naruto would make sure that nobody died at all. Least of all his teammates. He glanced back at the three of them for a second, making a silent promise: Naruto would protect them.

Naruto readied his kunai and locked eyes with the bandit. “Bring it on!”

He had barely even finished talking yet when he suddenly felt like he couldn’t move. When he looked down, confused, he noticed that his feet had disappeared into the ground.

Frantically, he tried to pull himself loose. This was an Earth ninjutsu, it had to be, but he hadn’t seen anyone weave any signs. Something was definitely wrong.

“Hey!” he shouted, still struggling to tear his feet from the ground. The soil might as well have been concrete; it wouldn’t budge. “What the--”

But the bandit ignored Naruto completely. He started counting, his sword angled back over his shoulder like he was about to throw it. His voice was low and dripping with amusement.

“One…”

And before Naruto knew fully what was happening, the bandit’s sword landed in Kakashi’s chest.

Naruto had the distant thought that this wasn’t right, that Kakashi wasn’t this slow. He should’ve dodged by now, should’ve deflected the sword. He was a jounin, and a pretty awesome one at that; he probably had dozens of tricks up his sleeve, or hundreds, or maybe thousands. He could’ve done so many things to avoid being hit. It was almost as if Naruto was looking at an image of Kakashi that wasn’t quite him.

His thoughts were entirely overshadowed by icy shock. Kakashi should’ve dodged, but he didn’t. And now--

Both of Kakashi’s kunai fell from his hands and dropped to the ground – first one kunai, then the other. They hit the ground like the sound of a heartbeat, thump-thump, like the sound of Naruto’s own heart stuttering in his chest.

Kakashi raised one twitching hand to clutch at his flak jacket, staggering backwards in a struggle to keep his balance. His one visible eye was wide open. He looked terrified. It wasn’t an expression that Naruto had ever wanted to see on Kakashi’s face.

Suddenly feeling entirely cold inside, Naruto watched his sensei fall backwards. He half expected Kakashi to be a clone – but Kakashi didn’t disappear in a cloud of smoke. His body hit the ground hard, the sword sticking grotesquely from his ribcage.

His eye stayed open, glassy and unseeing.

Naruto’s breath hitched in his throat. “Kakashi-sensei?” he heard himself call out, holding onto the desperate hope that Kakashi would respond, that he’d somehow be okay, but any reaction stayed off. Kakashi stayed still and silent, staring blankly into the distance.

Naruto’s breathing quickened. He wanted to scream, to punch something. There was no time for that, though. He’d almost forgotten that the bandit would show him three seconds, and that he was still counting.

“Two…” came the bandit’s voice from behind Naruto.

Naruto whirled around, forgetting that his feet were still stuck in the ground; he dropped to one knee. The bandit stood behind Sakura, holding a knife against her throat. It was a simple kitchen knife, Naruto noticed distantly, the same kind that Teuchi and Ayame used to chop veggies at the restaurant. It felt all kinds of wrong to be thinking about ramen right now.

Sakura was struggling to get away from the blade, whimpering, but she was trapped in between the bandit and his knife. A single drop of blood leaked out from where the blade pressed against her throat.

Sasuke stood next to her, simply staring. That wasn’t like Sasuke – he would’ve sprung into action ages ago. He had to be in shock, so deeply jarred by what happened to Kakashi that he couldn’t react.

Naruto wanted to scream. There was no time for Sasuke to be in shock. Naruto was stuck in the ground. No matter how much he wanted to help Sakura, he couldn’t. Sasuke had to help her, and if he didn’t do anything, she would--

“Sasuke!” Naruto yelled, his voice breaking with panic and urgency. “Help her!”

Even if Sasuke had decided to move, it would’ve been too late. The bandit’s kunai tore through Sakura’s throat, ripping through muscles and arteries and her windpipe. It made a noise that Naruto couldn’t put into words, but he was certain it would follow him in his dreams. He wanted to puke.

For a moment, the bandit held Sakura up by the back of her neck as her head lolled to the side, exposing the gaping wound. Her red dress got covered in darker red. Her hair was so soaked with blood that it looked like it had never been pink in the first place. She was shuddering.

The bandit dropped her to the ground, visibly shifting his attention to Sasuke. Sasuke finally – finally – pulled out a kunai, but Naruto could already tell that it wouldn’t do him any good to fight back. The only thing that could give Sasuke an advantage over this opponent was his cool eyes, but he hadn’t learned yet to activate them on command. Right now, his eyes were black and emotionless. He didn’t even seem scared.

Naruto’s heart was beating rapidly, blood rushing in his ears. He cursed at the bandit, loudly and sincerely. It was tiring to raise his voice.

The bandit – the bastard – only smiled back at him. His voice rang out in the quiet.

“Three.”

“Sasuke, run!”

Naruto saw the bandit swing his knife at Sasuke, too quickly and with horrible clarity. Sasuke hardly reacted at all. Desperate, Naruto tried once more to kick himself loose from the Earth ninjutsu, but he remained trapped in place. Wordlessly, he cried out to Sasuke, watching as the bandit prepared to plunge the knife into Sasuke’s chest and Sasuke continued to not move.

With a dull scraping sound, the knife lodged itself into Sasuke’s chest. Only the wooden hilt of the blade stuck out from between his ribs.

Blood dripped from Sasuke’s mouth as he coughed. He stayed upright for another second or so before crashing to the ground. He wheezed as he hit the ground, and it felt like the breath was being knocked from Naruto’s own lungs as well.

The loss was all of a sudden tangible, like an organ had been ripped straight from Naruto’s body. He felt so cold inside that he couldn’t think. This was too much. This was too much. He couldn’t lose his teammates. They were the closest things he’d ever had to friends. He hadn’t known them for very long yet, but he’d somehow thought that they’d be together for the rest of his life.

His throat closed up like he was about to cry, but he didn’t let himself cry. Instead, he stared up at the bandit, physically feeling his gaze seething with fury. He was too angry to speak.

“Why are you mad?” the bandit asked, and his fake ignorance pissed Naruto off even more. “I did exactly what I promised I would do. Three seconds, not a moment more. That’s how long it took me to kill your friends. You see, I don’t make false promises. Contrary to you, kid.”

“I never make false promises,” Naruto gritted out. His voice sounded much smaller than he wanted it to sound. “I don’t go back on my word. Ever.”

Except today. Except for that silent promise that he’d made to his team – the promise that he would protect them. He suddenly felt too tired to move, all of his strength disappearing. He didn’t want to be angry anymore. He wanted this asshole to leave him alone. He wanted his team back. He wanted to go home, wanted everything to be normal again.

“I think you’re lying again, genin.” The bandit shook his head. “Do you really want your last words to be a lie?”

“What--”

Naruto had barely even processed that the bandit had pulled his sword from Kakashi’s chest again. The next thing he knew, was that the sword was zipping towards his head.

He saw the blood lying on the blade, the way the metal glistened in the sunlight. Naruto felt himself try to flinch back. He still couldn’t move. He didn’t know why he’d expected to be able to.

There was a moment of stillness, right before the blade connected. It felt like Naruto’s heart skipped a beat.

Then, everything went black.

He woke up with a gasp, bolting upright in blind panic. His heart was still thundering in his chest, and he was panting; it took him a moment to calm down enough to notice where he was.

Sunlight shone down on his face from behind treetops, making him squint. He could see vibrant green through his eyelashes; he was sitting under a tree, somewhere in the middle of the forest. His shoulders slumped with relief when he noticed that the bandit was nowhere to be seen.

He’d just had a bad dream. That was all – just a bad dream. He was safe. He was safe, and nothing had happened to his teammates.

Naruto stretched his arms and looked around, blinking against the bright sunlight. He was alone; his teammates weren’t within sight right now. He didn’t let that stress him out. It wasn’t unusual for Team Seven to briefly split up when they traveled – shinobi had bladders too, after all. It probably wouldn’t be long before his teammates got back.

Naruto let his eyes fall shut again. He’d only just woken up, but he was still sleepy. He leaned back against the tree with a yawn. He was too sleepy to think, so he didn’t think much about how he’d gotten here and why he didn’t remember falling asleep. He must’ve just been so tired from the journey home that he’d dozed off as soon as he got the chance.

The sound of light footsteps caught his attention, and he lazily opened one eye. If he guessed correctly, that was Sakura approaching; compared to Sasuke and Kakashi, she made the most noise when she walked.

As expected, a head of pink hair appeared from behind a tree. Naruto raised a hand as she got closer; “Good morning, Sakura--”

The words died an abrupt death on his tongue. From far away, he hadn’t noticed that Sakura’s dress was soaked in blood from the collar down. He hadn’t noticed the shallow cut on her throat, which seemed to be growing larger before his eyes, bleeding worse by the second.

Sakura raised an eyebrow at him; it was a carefree expression, as if she didn’t realize what was happening. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What are you looking at?” Her tone was light, but her voice was barely even there. Naruto felt like the ground had fallen out from underneath him.

Shakily, because he was suddenly freezing cold, he pointed at Sakura’s throat. “Sakura, there’s…” He couldn’t look away as the skin on her throat continued to split apart. “You’re bleeding.”

Still raising an eyebrow at him, she carefully felt at her throat – and then her eyes grew wide in horror. She didn’t reply, just screamed, and the sound was all wet and garbled.

Naruto scrambled up from where he sat, hurrying over to her. He pressed his hands against the wound in her throat, trying desperately to stop the bleeding, but the blood wouldn’t stop pouring from the cut. Sakura continued to scream. The sound made him feel like he was being ripped apart from the inside out.

He took off his jacket and pressed it tightly against the wound, but the fabric soon became soaked with blood. He used the T-shirt that he wore underneath his jacket, but that wasn’t enough either. Sakura kept bleeding; Naruto felt to his horror that his feet were slipping away in a puddle of blood. It seemed like there was far too much blood for such a little body.

Sakura swayed on her feet, finally affected by the blood loss. Naruto wrapped his arms around her, trying to keep her upright – he remembered from his Academy lessons that it was the easiest to stop the bleeding when the wound was elevated above the heart. Considering how difficult this was, he should try his best not to make it even harder.

Sakura leaned heavily on his shoulder, gasping for breath in between her screams. A steady stream of blood spilled down Naruto’s back. He hadn’t noticed how cold he’d been until he felt how warm her blood was. It made him nauseous.

He cursed, deeply helpless. “It doesn’t stop bleeding,” he gritted out, “why doesn’t it stop bleeding?”

Sakura slumped against him. It took Naruto a moment to realize that she had gone silent, and that the wound had at last stopped bleeding. He couldn’t feel her breathe, anymore.

He barely had enough time to process what that meant before the world went dark again.

He woke up with a shout on his lips and with sweat on his back, entirely disoriented. Sunlight shone in his eyes again; he was back to sitting underneath that tree.

Naruto rubbed at his face, trying to order his thoughts. He’d had another nightmare. He’d dreamt that he’d woken up, and then he’d dreamt that Sakura died in his arms. None of that had actually happened. Everything was all right.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to drill that fact into his head: Sakura wasn’t dead. Everything was all right.

He managed to hold on to that thought for about five seconds. Then, he opened his eyes again and saw Sasuke stumbling towards him.

Sasuke, stumbling. With a large hole in his chest.

Naruto got up hastily, dread coiling in his guts. Sasuke’s face was gray, and his mouth was just as red as his Sharingan. A narrow stream of blood dripped down his chin.

“Don’t stare at me like that, dumbass,” Sasuke snapped – his voice was so raspy that Naruto couldn’t think of a good reply.

Naruto looked away silently, somehow scared that something bad would happen if he spoke. Sasuke scoffed, “Yeah, that’s right.”

His scoff quickly turned into a cough, though, and Naruto couldn’t help but look up again. Sasuke folded in on himself, both hands clasped across his mouth. Blood dripped down his hands.

Naruto watched, eyes wide, as Sasuke sank to his knees, still coughing. Naruto was quick enough to catch him before he fell down any further. He eased Sasuke to the ground as carefully as he could.

Sasuke pushed at his hands. “Don’t touch me,” he choked out. “Let me go.” He was trying to resist Naruto’s help, but he was clearly too weak to succeed. He coughed again, his back arching off the ground, and blood splattered up from his mouth.

Naruto, meanwhile, was trying to figure out what to do, and he felt more and more like he was about to cry. Sasuke was clearly bleeding on the inside, but his Academy lessons had never taught him how to deal with that. Genin were supposed to leave that sort of stuff to medical-nin.

“Medic!” Naruto yelled at the top of his lungs, “please!” He knew that a medical-nin would never logically hear his call here in the middle of the forest, but none of this made sense anyway – in his panic, he figured it was worth a try.

When his call went unanswered, he screamed out instead: “Kakashi-sensei! Help!”

But nobody came. Naruto called out to Sakura next, but she didn’t react either. She wouldn’t’ve been able to do anything anyway, but at least Naruto wouldn’t be alone if she were there.

Sasuke’s breathing became more and more unsteady, to the point that he’d sometimes not breathe for seconds at a time. Desperate to do anything, Naruto kept pressure on the wound on Sasuke’s chest, knowing that it wouldn’t help.

Sasuke’s eyes were trained on Naruto’s face, his eyebrows furrowed in a scowl. “That hurts, you idiot,” he said hoarsely, weakly trying to push Naruto’s hands off his wound. “Get off me – I can’t breathe when you’re pushing down on me like that--”

Sasuke’s voice trailed off with a quiet cough. His chest didn’t rise anymore after that.

Naruto’s eyes burned. He sat back and balled his fists, and watched how his vision blurred with tears until there was nothing left to see but darkness.

The next time he woke up, he didn’t even have time to catch his breath.

Kakashi lay on the ground next to him, absolutely covered in blood. A broad, deep wound ran diagonally across his whole upper body. His flak jacket was cut clean in two. The cut was awfully reminiscent of the injury that Kakashi had suffered during their fight on the bridge in Wave, but this wound was so much worse. So much deeper. It looked like the sword had cleaved straight through his ribs.

Kakashi looked up at Naruto, his face pale and his one visible eye unfocused. Inexplicably, he smiled at Naruto, a very sincere smile that didn’t fit the situation at all.

“What’s got you looking so worried?” he asked, looking away again. He sounded as lazy and laid-back as always, despite the massive tear in his chest. “Relax. It’s a beautiful day.”

Naruto knew better than to waste any more time; he shrugged quickly out of his jacket and balled it up against the wound, trying to get it to stop bleeding. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that it wouldn’t work. He also knew that this was most likely another dream, and that he’d wake up again after this. Still, he decided he should try to help anyway, just in case this was real after all.

Naruto watched as blood soaked the orange color of his jacket. He knew that he was powerless to do anything. Kakashi, too, would die right underneath his hands. Naruto was smart enough to see that coming.

He blinked rapidly, trying to hold back his tears. All of this probably wasn’t real, but his fear was real, and his despair was real. It was so real that he felt cold inside, despite the sunlight that shone down on him.

He wished he knew when this would end. When this dream ended, would another one follow? Would Naruto need to watch his teammates – his friends – die over and over and over again? He wanted to wake up, but he couldn’t, no matter how hard he focused on trying to wake up. He felt so tired, too tired to wake up.

Warm tears dripped down his face; Naruto couldn’t hold them back anymore. Kakashi looked up at him. “What’re you so upset about?” he asked. His laid-back words sounded slurred, dazed.

Naruto angrily wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his T-shirt. “I’m upset because you’re bleeding out,” he replied. “Because I know that you’re going to die, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Oh,” Kakashi said, “I see. Sorry about that.” He gave an apologetic little shrug, which made more blood squirt from the wound. “Well, I’m flattered that you’re upset about me dying.”

“You’re welcome,” Naruto heard himself reply faintly. He didn’t get any response. He didn’t need to look down to know that Kakashi had died.

Naruto heaved a deep sigh, feeling his eyes burn hot with tears. Exhausted, he bent down and rested his forehead on Kakashi’s chest, and closed his eyes. He found himself idly wondering if the next dream would be as bad as this one.

The next dream was as bad as this one, and so was the one after that. Naruto dreamed and woke up and dreamed again, enough times that he couldn’t keep count. Each time, he watched a friend die despite his attempts to help. Each time, he was terrified that he wouldn’t wake up from this, that this was reality and that one of his friends was truly dead.

He lost count of how often he watched Sakura’s face grow paler and paler while Naruto struggled to keep her blood inside of her body. He lost count of how often Sasuke snapped at him for trying to help.

He tried to keep his friends conscious, tried to call for help, tried to use every first-aid technique he remembered from the Academy. It was never enough. Each time, their breathing stopped right underneath his hands.

He lost count of how often he cried into Kakashi’s flak jacket. He lost count of how often he yelled at Sasuke, trying to keep him awake while he knew he wouldn’t open his eyes again. He didn’t dare think about Sakura, curled up on the ground in a puddle of her own blood, so incomprehensibly tiny even though she was taller than him.

Every time he opened his eyes, he saw trees, sunlight, and stuff that would haunt him forever. He began fearing that he’d never truly wake up again.

At some point, though, he opened his eyes and saw darkness. Just darkness.

Naruto blinked a couple of times, letting his eyes get used to the dark. Distantly, he noticed that he didn’t feel as tired anymore.

He could smell the forest around him, could feel the bark of a tree digging into his back. When his eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, he could see Kakashi sitting in front of him, his back to him. Kakashi wasn’t visibly injured, but Naruto couldn’t let that reassure him. Sometimes, the wounds didn’t appear immediately.

As Naruto watched, Kakashi turned around, then paused. Kakashi was moving weirdly – his movements weren’t as smooth as they normally were, and he seemed a little shaky – but he didn’t seem to be dying, or mortally wounded. Naruto looked him over, kept his eyes on him. He expected that if he looked away, Kakashi would no longer be okay.

Kakashi looked back at him, his Sharingan glowing in the darkness. “Naruto?” he asked. He sounded different, as though he found it difficult to be consistent about the tone and volume of his own voice. For a nightmare, that seemed like an oddly specific detail.

Naruto heard that Kakashi was talking, but he tried not to pay attention. It was easier not to listen to the things his teammates were saying. It was worse to watch them die when they’d just had a conversation.

He found himself confused, though. This dream was different from the others. It was increasingly easy to have hope that it wasn’t a dream at all.

But he… He really couldn’t be sure that he was awake, could he? He could hope that he was awake all he wanted, but that didn’t change the fact that his teammates could still drop dead at any moment. He felt like if he tried too hard to figure it out, the world would fall apart around him.

It was all far too complicated to understand on his own. So when Kakashi paused, Naruto looked him in the eyes and asked, so very carefully: “Kakashi-sensei, is this real?”

Chapter Text

It has been brought to Kakashi’s attention that he knows much less about genjutsu than he thought.

He’s used genjutsu, sure. It’s helped him win many a battle, has saved him from certain death time and again. His Sharingan makes him naturally good at genjutsu; it only takes a single glance to force someone into an illusion. He knows how it works, knows the tricks of the trade.

It’s the experience of being under genjutsu that he knows hardly anything about. In fact, he’s never been under genjutsu himself. His Sharingan repels all kinds of genjutsu he’s encountered so far, and he’d been skilled and lucky enough to avoid it in the years before he got his Sharingan. Now, though, he’s suddenly confronted with the fact that he doesn’t know what genjutsu is like, and it’s a problem.

When he looks into Naruto’s wide, terrified eyes – they’re practically pleading for any kind of reassurance – Kakashi finds himself drawing a blank. Maybe it’s the tiredness, or the surprise about Naruto suddenly waking up, but Kakashi cannot figure out the right thing to say.

Naruto just asked him if reality is real. This may be much worse than Kakashi anticipated.

“Sensei?” Naruto asks, seeming to grow scared as the silence stretches on. “Please just tell me this is real. I don’t want to have any more nightmares.” To Kakashi’s alarm, Naruto’s breathing quickens, his chest heaving with panic. “Please promise me you’re not going to die. I’ve seen you die so many times, you and Sasuke and Sakura, and it’s too much – it’s too much, and I want to wake up--”

Nothing he says makes any sense; Kakashi suddenly wishes for the Leaf’s psych team as much as he wishes for medical-nin. More pressing than the things Naruto is saying, though, is the fact that he’s freaking out. Kakashi may not know what Naruto has been through, but he knows what hyperventilation looks like, and Naruto is heading straight towards it.

“Hey,” Kakashi tells him, “slow down. Look at me.” He bends down to Naruto’s level, trying to make eye contact. It’s a trick he’s seen Tenzou use a couple of times during his days as an ANBU captain; making eye contact gives Naruto something to focus on, something other than his thoughts.

Naruto looks up at him. The daze has very clearly disappeared from his eyes, making way for panic. His eyes are red-rimmed.

Kakashi nods at him. “I need you to breathe, okay?” he says. “Just breathe. You were caught in a genjutsu, and then you were knocked out for over a full day. It makes sense that you’re confused. Just focus on calming down right now.”

“I was caught in a genjutsu?” Naruto asks, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

“Yeah. Whatever you saw, it wasn’t real.”

Naruto pauses, looking thoughtful. “That- That makes sense, I think,” he then says.

“One of the bandits – the one with the sword – used a genjutsu on you,” Kakashi says, hoping that further explanation will help calm Naruto down. “He was probably a missing-nin. I managed to take him down. He’s dead, and you’re safe.” Kakashi watches for a moment as Naruto’s breathing starts to slow down, and then he adds gently: “You’re safe, and you’re awake. This is real.”

“I hope so.” There’s something sad in Naruto’s gaze; Kakashi holds his tongue, fearing that he’ll only make it worse if he talks. “You see, I don’t know if I can believe you, Kakashi-sensei. I can’t tell if I’m still dreaming.” He sniffles, his chakra signature spiking with distress. “For all I know, you could keel over and die at any moment, no matter how badly I want to believe that I’m awake.”

“I’m not going to die.” That’s a big promise to make, especially considering how far they are from the village, and considering the possibility that they won’t make it back home. But the words just roll from Kakashi’s mouth, like it’s the only right answer to give. “I’m not going to die, not if I can help it. Okay?”

That, at least, seems to calm Naruto down a little. “Yeah. Okay.”

Kakashi stays silent for a bit, giving Naruto the chance to catch his breath. He seems calmer, now, but it’s still disturbing how different Naruto seems. There’s not much left of the excitable little loudmouth that Kakashi has come to know over the past weeks.

It kind of hurts, Kakashi notes absently, to see Naruto so quiet and scared. Whatever that genjutsu was, it must’ve really taken its toll on Naruto.

What kind of genjutsu could be horrible enough to break through Naruto’s optimism and determination?

Kakashi intends to ask about it once Naruto has calmed down enough, but he doesn’t need to ask at all; at some point, Naruto looks away and clears his throat.

“That bandit – the missing-nin, I mean – he made me believe that he’d killed you,” Naruto says, biting down on his lower lip. “You, and Sakura and Sasuke… I had to watch you die.” There’s a ghost of a wry smile on his face. “It really sucked.”

“I can imagine that,” Kakashi replies softly. It makes sense; Naruto is so intensely social, almost desperate for connection and attention. It makes sense that he’d be affected by a genjutsu that features his team dying.

Well, at least Kakashi’s lesson about teamwork hit its mark – but in this case, that’s not really something to celebrate.

“The thing is,” Naruto continues, pulling Kakashi from his thoughts, “the genjutsu didn’t end there. It just… kept going. For hours, it felt like.”

Now that’s weird – Naruto should’ve only been under genjutsu for a few minutes at most. Sakura managed to break it before the battle even ended, so he should’ve only been trapped in the illusion for maybe ten minutes; definitely not hours. Kakashi frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Well…” Naruto shakes his head, clenching his jaws. This is clearly difficult for him to talk about, but Kakashi needs to know. “When I thought the genjutsu had ended, I woke up. I thought I was awake, but I- I wasn’t. I had to watch you all die again, and then I woke up again, and then I had to watch you die again.”

Kakashi chews on the inside of his cheek, trying to think. Naruto’s genjutsu was broken yesterday, but it took him a long time to wake up regardless. That’s logical; being put under genjutsu is a very mentally and physically taxing experience, so it makes sense that Naruto’s system forced him to sleep afterwards, to give his body the time to recover.

Naruto was asleep for a long time after his genjutsu was already broken. It’s entirely possible that he had a bunch of nightmares while he was unconscious.

Kakashi explains as much to Naruto, who quietly takes it all in. Kakashi realizes that he really isn’t used to Naruto actually listening to him; he keeps expecting Naruto to interrupt him, but that doesn’t happen.

There’s a brief silence after Kakashi finishes talking, as Naruto tries to wrap his head around everything. Kakashi notices that he feels bad for the kid; Kakashi’s experience with genjutsu may be limited, but his experience with nightmares is, unfortunately, very extensive. He knows what it’s like to spend entire nights watching loved ones die. He knows what it’s like to spend mornings not being sure what’s real and what isn’t.

“So I…” Naruto shakes his head, visibly struggling to understand. “So the guy with the sword put me into a genjutsu, and that’s when I saw you all die the first time. He made me see that.”

“That’s right,” Kakashi replies with a nod.

“And then the genjutsu stopped.”

“Sakura got you out, yeah.”

“And then I… I got super tired for some reason? So I had to sleep a lot?”

“Your systems automatically tried to fight back against the genjutsu, so that drained a lot of your chakra,” Kakashi says. “It’s a common reaction, especially for genin. You stayed unconscious afterwards because your body was too exhausted to wake up. It needed some time to refill your chakra reserves.” Naruto is lucky he naturally recovers quickly; some genin end up being unconscious for days. Kakashi decides not to burden Naruto with that information, though.

Naruto nods thoughtfully, frowning. “So when I was asleep, I had a bunch of bad dreams. I saw you die again and again – those were nightmares? That wasn’t part of the genjutsu?”

“Most likely,” Kakashi replies. “It’s my guess that your mind clung to what you saw, even after the genjutsu was broken. You couldn’t wake up, so you kept repeating the same images in your head.”

That’s the most logical way to say it, but the truth of the matter is that Naruto simply must’ve been terrified. He had nightmares about that genjutsu because he was scared.

And Kakashi really, really doesn’t blame him for being scared. Judging by Naruto’s descriptions, there must’ve been pure killing intent mixed into the illusion – an image of the exact things those bandits had wanted to do to Team Seven. On top of that, the genjutsu was very true to life. No details were changed, except the events that followed after Naruto was put under genjutsu. It must’ve been almost impossible to realize that the image was a genjutsu, especially for a genin.

It’s… truly cruel. These are the kinds of genjutsu that make people lose their minds. It would’ve been enough to knock Naruto out, but instead, the enemy decided to fill his head with awful images. Stuff that might stay with him his entire life.

Naruto nods quietly. “I think I get it,” he says. He looks up at Kakashi; his gaze is still filled with despair, with fear. “For a while, I really thought I’d lost everyone,” he whispers. “It’s still kind of hard to convince myself that you’re all okay. That everything only happened inside my head.”

Naruto’s eyes fill up with tears, and his face scrunches up into a grimace. It’s startling; Naruto doesn’t cry easily. It’s a harsh reminder of how serious everything is, how frightened he must be.

Kakashi struggles to find the right words, as Naruto wipes at the tears that drip down his face. He wishes he could reassure Naruto, but he barely knows how to calm himself down after a bad nightmare, let alone somebody else. He understands what Naruto is going through, but that won’t be much help to him. If anything, the knowledge that Kakashi has had nightmares for a full nineteen years of his life might actually make things worse. It might be better if Kakashi says nothing, but that won’t help Naruto stop crying, either.

As always whenever he finds himself lost, Kakashi tries to think of what Minato-sensei would’ve done in this situation. Which is difficult in this case, because Kakashi can’t remember ever crying in front of Minato. Back then, he hated talking about his feelings just as much as he does now. It’s complicated to imagine how Minato would deal with an upset student when Kakashi has never seen him reassure anyone at all.

One thing that Kakashi remembers about Minato, though, is that he had a habit of murmuring reassurances whenever things were bad. It always made him sound nervous, as if he was mostly trying to calm himself down, and he always said rather meaningless stuff like “It’s okay” and “There’s no reason to worry”. His reassurances generally had the opposite effect on Kakashi; he remembers being thirteen and having his first panic attack, remembers how he’d snapped at Minato that things weren’t okay and there was every reason to worry.

But Naruto is Minato’s flesh and blood. And he’s not as cynical as Kakashi is by far. Maybe Minato-sensei’s futile reassurances will work on him.

Carefully, trying to squash down his awkwardness, Kakashi clears his throat. “It’s all right,” he says. “It’s over, now. You’re no longer stuck in a genjutsu, and you’re no longer dreaming. You don’t have to worry about it, anymore.”

Naruto wipes at his cheeks with the sleeves of his jacket. “Okay,” he replies after a moment, to Kakashi’s relief.

“That’s good. There’s no need to be afraid, anymore.” Kakashi reaches out a hand to ruffle Naruto’s hair – another thing that he vaguely remembers Minato doing – but before his hand even touches Naruto’s head, Naruto rushes towards him and wraps his arms around him.

Kakashi freezes briefly, startled. His Sharingan saw the embrace coming, and he would’ve been plenty fast enough to duck away, but he chose not to. Still, he’s not used to physical contact other than kicks and punches and the occasional stranglehold. He’s definitely not used to people sobbing into his flak jacket.

He shakes himself and musters up the emotional strength to pat Naruto on the back. He carefully shifts his balance so that he won’t be pushed over by Naruto’s weight. His leg gives a twinge of pain, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter right now.

“I know it’s difficult,” he murmurs, rubbing Naruto’s back. “And scary. But you can let go of everything you saw – just forget it all. It’s not real, so it’s not important.”

Naruto nods against his shoulder, his body still trembling with sobs. His face is pressed against Kakashi’s flak jacket, so Kakashi can’t read his lips, but he supposes that’s all right. It’s clear what Naruto is feeling right now. Words aren’t necessary.

It takes a while before Naruto’s sobs finally subside. Kakashi tries his best to comfort him, tries to push through the fact that hugs make him uncomfortable. He eventually settles for just holding Naruto close, and apparently that helps.

At some point, Naruto sniffles and mumbles something into Kakashi’s chest. Kakashi loosens his grip on him. “What’d you say?” he asks. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

Naruto sits up and wipes a sleeve across his face. His face is puffy, but his chakra signature finally looks calm. “I said, sorry for freaking out like that,” he says.

“It’s all right,” Kakashi replies. “I get it.”

Naruto suddenly peers over Kakashi’s shoulder, distracted. He squints against the darkness; Kakashi turns around to see what he’s looking at. He’s looking at Sakura and Sasuke, who are lying on the ground behind him.

“Hey, sensei?” Naruto asks, and Kakashi suddenly doesn’t like where this is going. “Sasuke and Sakura are okay, too, right?”

There’s hesitance in the nod that Kakashi gives in return. “They’re both alive,” he says, “and they’re going to stay alive, there’s no doubt about that. But they didn’t get out of the fight entirely unscathed. None of us did.”

Naruto’s eyes widen with a realization. “You had to fight those bandits after I was knocked out,” he says. “I hadn’t realized.”

Kakashi nods. “We fought them, and we won,” he says. “And we got out with relatively minor injuries. Sakura has a broken arm, and I have a cut on my leg, plus some hearing damage from an explosion. Out of the three of us, Sasuke is probably the worst off – he exhausted himself pretty badly during the fight and he’s been knocked out ever since. I have no doubts that he’ll recover just fine, though.”

Kakashi has a lot of doubts about Sasuke’s condition, and he knows a bunch of medical-nin who would hesitate to call a leg injury this serious minor, and if Kakashi’s hearing damage turns out to be permanent, then that could potentially have very serious consequences for his career as a shinobi. He doesn’t say that, though. Naruto is worried enough as is.

Plus, there’s a good chance that everything will turn out okay in the end. There’s no reason to worry about all the bad things that could happen when none of those things actually come to pass.

Naruto chews nervously on his lip, but he doesn’t panic again, thankfully. He looks at Sakura and Sasuke, seemingly lost deep in thought.

“Can I talk to Sakura?” he asks after a beat. “I just… I really want to be sure that she’s okay.”

“Sure.” Kakashi nods and gets to his feet. It’s about time he woke her up, anyway; she’s been sleeping for about an hour longer than she’d wanted to sleep. He absently makes a mental note to talk to her about how deeply she’s been sleeping – it’s kind of inconvenient for shinobi to sleep through an entire conversation that’s happening right next to her. Well, she came from a civilian family, anyway. Kakashi shouldn’t have expected differently.

He crouches down next to Sakura and lays a hand on her good shoulder, shakes it gently. “Sakura, wake up.”

Her eyes snap open, startled. “Is something wrong?” she asks. Kakashi notices that her hand reaches for her weapons pouch; it’s a good reaction for a shinobi to have.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Kakashi replies, before she has the chance to pull out a kunai. “Naruto’s awake.”

Sakura’s eyes widen, and she looks over. Naruto gives an awkward little wave in response. “Morning,” he says, and even though his voice is still hoarse and strained from how he’d been crying just now, the whole action is so very Naruto. He seems reassured, now that it’s clear that Sakura is mostly all right.

Kakashi smiles to himself. He’d briefly feared that they’d lost their hyperactive knucklehead ninja, but it seems that Naruto is not entirely lost after all.

Chapter Text

It’s been about half an hour since Naruto woke up, and his initial panic has worn off by now. Kakashi helped him calm down, and Sakura helped him calm down further. Naruto hasn’t managed to entirely stop feeling on edge, but at least it’s getting easier to believe that he’s actually awake. If something was going to happen to his teammates, it would’ve happened already. There’s still a lingering nervousness, a feeling like things are about to go wrong at any moment, but it’s getting easier to forget the reason for his anxiety.

He tries not to think about his dreams; Kakashi said that he should try to forget about them. And Naruto is pretty good at forgetting stuff, like taking out the trash or paying his rent on time or when he last watered the plant on his windowsill, so he’ll probably forget about his nightmares, too. Well, eventually, anyway.

Naruto takes a sip from his water flask and stares at the trees around him. It’s dark, and quiet. Sakura is sitting next to him, but she’s not saying anything, her attention focused on the forest around them. They’re standing guard together, but nothing has happened so far; it’s silent, apart from the soft, rhythmic sound of Kakashi’s breathing. He’s lying on the ground behind them, fast asleep. Naruto turns around every now and then to make sure he’s still breathing. He’s always still breathing.

There’s not really anything for Naruto to do; everyone around him is either asleep or silent. Normally, it wouldn’t take Naruto long to start getting bored, but now, he finds himself embracing the boredom. Nothing is happening, and that means that nothing bad is happening. He keeps expecting something bad to happen, but so far, everything seems to be okay.

He checks again whether Kakashi and Sasuke are still breathing, and he glances at Sakura’s neck – her throat is unmarred, as it should be, but Naruto keeps expecting her skin to split open and start bleeding. He involuntarily imagines blood flowing down the front of her dress, and he grimaces.

Sakura catches him staring and turns to him, her eyebrows pinched together. “What is it?” she asks. There’s no sharpness to her voice; no trace of that familiar annoyed tone that she seems to reserve solely for him. “Are you okay?”

“Uh- Yeah. Of course.” Naruto looks away, fearing that if he keeps looking at her, she’ll snap at him. She snaps at him a lot, and he doesn’t want that right now. He doesn’t want to make his teammates angry, now that he’s finally got them back. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“I don’t know. You seem quiet.”

“Huh?” No one’s ever told him before that he’s too quiet instead of too loud.

Sakura gives a half-shrug. “Well, I’m just saying,” she replies, “we’ve been sitting here for quite a while. Normally, you would’ve talked my ears off by now. It’s… kind of unsettling.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Naruto grapples for something to say. “Uhm, so…” It’s weirdly difficult to come up with something to talk about. It feels like it’s been ages since he last focused on making conversation instead of struggling to save lives. “I don’t…”

Thankfully, Sakura doesn’t allow an awkward silence to fall when Naruto flounders. “How much did Kakashi-sensei tell you about what’s going on?” she asks. “A lot happened while you were knocked out.”

“I bet,” Naruto murmurs – he may not know all the details, but judging by the state of his team, he’s missed a lot of action. “Kakashi-sensei didn’t say much, really. He just told me about the genjutsu, and that all three of you got hurt fighting those bandits. That’s pretty much it.” He huffs a laugh; “To be honest, I’m not even sure where exactly we are, right now. He didn’t mention that.”

Sakura shifts uncomfortably. “He probably didn’t tell you because he didn’t want to startle you,” she replies carefully. “It’s… Well, we’re really far from home. It’ll take days before we’re back to the village.”

Naruto frowns. “Wait,” he says, “I thought I’d been unconscious for a whole day. And it took us two days to get from Konoha to the harbor…” He takes a moment to count in his head. “Doesn’t that mean that we should be halfway home by now?”

“Well,” Sakura replies with a grimace, “half of our team was unconscious all day, and that made it difficult to travel. We’re slower than we were when we were traveling to the harbor – a lot slower. Normally, we’d travel by jumping through the trees, but Kakashi-sensei can’t do that right now. He hurt his leg during the fight.” Sakura chews on her lip. “He doesn’t show it, but I think he’s hurt much worse than he lets on.”

“He said he only got a cut on his leg,” Naruto says. “It didn’t sound all that serious.”

Sakura gives him an uncertain look. “I don’t know,” she says. “His leg was bleeding pretty heavily, and he’s been limping badly.” She sighs. “I tried to ask him about it, but he just told me not to worry. He doesn’t seem to like it when I ask if he’s okay.”

Naruto glances over his shoulder to look at Kakashi. He’s still asleep, which is strange, because Kakashi has a talent for waking up at the slightest of sounds. Naruto has a feeling that that hearing damage of his is also more serious than he let on.

“We’ll just have to keep an eye on him,” Naruto says, turning back to Sakura with a determined look on his face. He’s finally got his teammates back; he’s going to make sure that they’re all safe, and that they stay that way. “Kakashi-sensei’s always weirdly reluctant to talk about stuff, so we’ll just have to pay attention ourselves. If we think that he’s in pain or needs a break or something, we’ll confront him about it.”

Sakura nods. “That sounds like a good plan,” she says. “We have a long way to go before we’re back to Konoha. We should be careful not to push ourselves. Our mission wasn’t time-sensitive or particularly important, anyway. It’s not a matter of how quickly we get back – what’s important is that we all make it back alive. If we run out of food, we can hunt, but if we run out of energy, we won’t be able to do anything. We’d be stuck out here.”

Naruto remains silent as he tries to wrap his head around everything; it all sounds so serious. They can’t travel quickly. They’re traveling so slowly that they could run out of food. They could get stuck out here if they’re not careful.

“But won’t anyone come looking for us?” he asks eventually. “The Hokage knows we’re out here, and Iruka-sensei knows, too. What about your parents? Won’t they get worried?”

“Not yet,” Sakura says wrily. “Our mission was supposed to last for another day at least. And even then, these kinds of missions are unpredictable. For all Konoha knows, we stuck around at the harbor for another week because our clients needed more help with something.” She shakes her head. “It’ll probably be a long time before someone comes looking for us.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

Sakura gives a little laugh. “Yeah. It does.”

“Well, compared to the dreams I had all day, it’s not that bad,” Naruto says with a shrug, leaning back on his hands. “We’re not currently being attacked, and nobody’s dead. It could’ve been much worse.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Sakura turns to him and smiles. “You know, Naruto, I’m glad you’re awake. You’re good at making people worry less, and we really need an optimist right now.”

Naruto has to think about that for a moment, but then he grins back. He’s not sure whether he’s optimistic, per se, or just determined – but nonetheless, it’s nice that his actions have a positive effect on the people around him. It’s nice that his words managed to reassure Sakura. It’s nice that he can think of a plan to help Kakashi and that he can be reasonably confident that that plan will work. It’s nice that he has reasons to believe that things will be okay; that he can make things okay. In his dreams, everything he did only made things worse, but now, he’s finally able to make things better for a change.

“Yeah,” Naruto agrees. “I’m glad I’m awake, too. Being put under genjutsu wasn’t fun.” A realization comes with those words, and he turns to Sakura. “By the way, Kakashi-sensei told me that you broke my genjutsu. That’s really cool – isn’t it pretty hard to break a genjutsu?”

Sakura shrugs. “Well, we were taught how to do it at the Academy,” she says, and she adds almost apologetically: “Although you may have been absent that day… Did no one ever teach you?”

Naruto shakes his head. “Iruka-sensei tried to teach me,” he replies, “but he got frustrated halfway through. He said it was too difficult for me, so we just left it at that.” He laughs nervously. “Though I feel like things would’ve been a lot easier if I did know how to break myself out of a genjutsu…”

“I can teach you,” Sakura offers. “It’s not more difficult than walking up a tree. You should be able to do it.”

“All right,” Naruto replies with a smile. “Thanks, Sakura.” He can feel his relief seeping into his tone; if he learns how to break a genjutsu himself, he doesn’t have to be afraid of being put under genjutsu again. He hadn’t even consciously registered that he was scared of that, but now, it feels like a weight has fallen off his shoulders.

Sakura grins; for a split second, Naruto expects her teeth to be covered in blood, but there’s nothing. Sakura isn’t bleeding. She’s fine. “You’re welcome.”

Kakashi wakes up around sunrise, pulled from his sleep by that familiar nagging pain in his leg. He sits up and stretches out his back. He slept like a log; judging by the fact that his painkiller wore off, he must’ve slept for at least five hours straight.

It’s a little concerning that he slept so deeply while he’s used to waking up at the smallest hint of danger, but he really needed his rest, so he can’t bring himself to care much. Yesterday was exhausting. His body had been much more desperate for rest than he’d realized.

Naruto and Sakura kept watch, and they report that the forest had been quiet all night – “Quiet except for your snoring, sensei,” Naruto adds with a good-natured snicker. He seems better; a far cry from the kid who was sobbing into Kakashi’s flak jacket last night. Kakashi will continue to keep an eye on him, because genjutsu can really mess with someone’s mind, but it’s a good sign that Naruto’s got his sense of humor back.

Naruto and Sakura eat a few bites of their ration bars as breakfast. Kakashi sits out of sight to eat a little as well, and to take a painkiller; he doesn’t want his students to see his face, and he definitely doesn’t want them to realize he’s in pain. A hurt leader is an unreliable one. He doesn’t want his team to lose faith that he can get them home.

He returns to his students quickly, sitting down beside them until they finish eating. They should probably start rationing their food, but Kakashi decides to let his students eat their fill for now. Sakura doesn’t eat that much anyway, and Naruto was unconscious for over twenty-four hours. They should eat; they’ll need their energy.

As Kakashi watches Sakura and Naruto talk, he realizes that he can vaguely hear their voices. He still can’t quite make out the exact words that they’re saying, but he can tell when they’re talking if he focuses. The ringing in his ears has lessened just slightly in volume. When he tells his students to get ready to move, he notices that he can hear his own voice again. It’s still quiet and it still sounds like the sound is coming from far away, but his voice is more than a buzzing in his ears.

They go on their way, at a slow yet steady pace. Naruto insists on carrying Sasuke, so Kakashi doesn’t need to summon his ninken again. It’s a lot easier for Kakashi to walk now that he doesn’t have to carry one of his students on his back. He’s still limping, and he still has to consciously channel chakra to his leg so that he won’t fall, but the steps he takes don’t hurt as much today. His amount of chakra stays at a reasonable enough level that he can use a Water ninjutsu to refill their water flasks when they stop for lunch, which means that they’ve avoided adding dehydration to their list of problems.

Sakura and Naruto pass the time by learning; Sakura spends the day teaching Naruto how to break a genjutsu. Kakashi keeps waiting for the moment that they’ll start bickering – Sakura doesn’t usually have a lot of patience with Naruto – but they seem to get along pretty well. Something has probably changed about the way Sakura sees Naruto, now that she’s had to save his life. She doesn’t seem to mind his presence, now that she’s had a taste of what their team would be like without him.

And Naruto just… seems careful. He seems to be acting fairly normally, but he seems to be more alert than usual. It makes sense; Naruto just woke up from a genjutsu in which he lost his entire team. It makes sense that he’s hypervigilant to any signs that he’s going to lose his team for real.

That feeling isn’t entirely unfamiliar to Kakashi. He remembers how he’d watched over Rin after he’d lost Obito. How he’d watched over his squads during his days in ANBU, so adamant not to lose another team. Naruto’s situation is different because his team is still alive, but Kakashi is sure that he’s suddenly awfully aware of how easy it would be to lose them. Kakashi knows that feeling.

So when Kakashi notices that Naruto is keeping a close eye on him as well, he lets it slide. He doesn’t like being watched, especially now that he’s injured, but he knows that Naruto just wants to make sure that he’s not going to drop dead. That’s all. So Kakashi squashes down his discomfort and pretends not to notice.

The day passes without much trouble. Somewhere late in the afternoon, Sakura and Naruto ask if they can stop walking for today, so they settle down and set up camp. Kakashi has gotten pretty tired by then, so it’s a good time to call it a day.

Naruto excitedly tells Kakashi how he finally learned how to break a genjutsu. He demonstrates, talking through a mouthful of ration bar; “You’re supposed to put your hands together like this, and then you’ve just got to concentrate really hard. Like when you climb a tree and you force your chakra to go to your feet, except you force it to do nothing. And then your chakra stops flowing for a second and it feels like your heart skips a beat and that’s all. The genjutsu’s broken. It’s not as hard as I thought.”

Kakashi looks at him with his Sharingan and watches him successfully halt his chakra flow. The grin on Naruto’s face speaks of pride, but there’s definitely some relief mixed in there as well. “And when all else fails, you can always just bite your tongue really hard,” Naruto says. “I’m never going to get stuck in a genjutsu again!”

That’s not entirely correct, since Naruto still doesn’t know how to identify a genjutsu when he’s inside one, but Kakashi doesn’t say that. They can focus some training sessions on that subject later. Kakashi smiles back at Naruto. “You did well,” he tells him. “You, too, Sakura. Nice work today, both of you.” He leans back on his hands. “You should get some sleep – you’re probably tired after today. I’ll take the first watch again.”

Sakura nods, but Naruto’s face falls notably at the mention of going to sleep. “You know, I wouldn’t mind standing guard, sensei,” he says, quickly forcing a smile back onto his face. “I’m not tired yet.”

There’s something unmistakably panicked to his words. Kakashi realizes quite suddenly that he’d almost forgotten about Naruto’s nightmares.

“Sakura, you can go to sleep if you want,” Kakashi tells Sakura. “I need to talk to Naruto for a bit.”

She frowns at them, but she seems to understand pretty quickly what’s going on. “Okay, then,” she replies. “Good night.”

She leans back against a tree and closes her eyes, using her backpack as a pillow. Kakashi notices for the first time that she consciously slows down the flow of her chakra to help her fall asleep. It’s not a trick that’s usually taught to genin; Kakashi wonders where she picked it up. Probably the library. Well, that explains why she’s been sleeping so deeply.

As soon as Sakura closes her eyes, the smile drops off Naruto’s face. “I’m serious, you know,” he tells Kakashi, looking away. “You can let me stand watch.”

“You’re scared to go to sleep,” Kakashi says, “aren’t you?”

Naruto winces; maybe Kakashi was too blunt. Still, he nods, looking almost guilty. “I tried really hard to forget about my nightmares, I really tried, but I- I don’t think I’m ready to go to sleep just yet. I just don’t want to have any more nightmares. I’ve already had more than I can handle.”

Kakashi can understand that line of thinking – in fact, there was a time when he himself thought that way. When he stayed awake for as long as possible, trying to postpone the moment that he’d eventually pass out and be trapped in his own head.

It’s a habit that took him years to unlearn, years of fear and sleep deprivation. The lack of sleep messed with his head and with his health. Kakashi can’t let Naruto go through the same thing. Kakashi may not be a good teacher, but he can at least warn Naruto not to make the same terrible choices as he did.

“I get that you’re scared that you’re going to have nightmares,” Kakashi says, “but you can’t let yourself become scared of going to sleep. Trust me. If you don’t sleep, you’re just going to make yourself feel tired and terrible.”

“That doesn’t sound as bad as getting nightmares,” Naruto murmurs.

“It does sound like the lesser evil,” Kakashi agrees. “But you can’t stay awake forever. And the more you struggle against going to sleep, the worse your dreams will get. If you teach yourself not to be scared of sleeping, your nightmares will get less bad over time.”

Naruto sighs. He puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket, looking frustrated. “Not being scared is easier said than done. I don’t get scared easily, but this is some terrifying stuff.”

“I know. But you have to try.”

“How can you know for sure that that’ll work?”

Kakashi looks Naruto in the eye. “Do you think you’re the first shinobi to ever have nightmares?” he asks, gently. He considers leaving it at that, but after a moment of hesitation he adds: “I know what works and what doesn’t. I’ve had my fair share of nightmares, too. They were at their worst when I was only a little older than you are.”

It helps to pretend that his nightmares are a thing of the past instead of admitting that they still plague him from time to time, but it’s still acutely uncomfortable to talk about something so personal. Kakashi exhales slowly, trying to appear calmer than he is. He kind of wishes that he could take back his words, take back that brief moment of vulnerability – but he said it to help Naruto understand that he’s not alone. Backing out now would be selfish.

Naruto’s eyes widen in understanding, and he looks away. “Oh,” he murmurs. He gives Kakashi a wry smile; “It sucks, doesn’t it?”

Kakashi huffs a laugh. “Yeah. And I was pretty terrible at dealing with my nightmares, too. But I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I’d be an awful teacher if I let you make the same mistakes as I did, wouldn’t I?”

“I guess so.” Naruto’s shoulders hunch. “I still don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep, though. What if I get stuck in, like, a never-ending loop of nightmares again?”

Kakashi gives that some thought. “I could wake you up every hour or so,” he offers. “Would that help?”

“Maybe. At least I wouldn’t get stuck in my dreams again.” There’s a little bit of hope in Naruto’s expression – his eternal optimism has resurfaced again. “I could try.”

Naruto lies down on the grass, resting his head on his backpack. It looks about as comfortable as it could get. For the first ten minutes or so, Naruto actually closes his eyes and tries to slow down his breathing. Kakashi leaves him alone and keeps an eye on their surroundings.

He truly believes that Naruto has managed to fall asleep – until Naruto suddenly taps him on the shoulder and murmurs, “I can’t.”

Well, maybe Kakashi was naïve to assume that it’d be this easy.

Naruto sits down next to him, sighing. His shoulders are hunched. “I can’t do it,” he says. “Every time I close my eyes, I--” He shakes his head. “I see all sorts of horrible things. I can’t. I can’t sleep.”

Kakashi chews on the inside of his cheek, trying to think. He could try to teach Naruto the method that Sakura uses to fall asleep, but that jutsu requires meticulous chakra control and Naruto doesn’t have that. Hell, most genin don’t have that kind of control – that’s why that jutsu usually isn’t taught to shinobi until they reach chuunin level. Naruto likely won’t be able to do it.

Kakashi considers, albeit briefly, knocking Naruto out with a genjutsu of his own. It’s a possibility, but Naruto probably won’t like it. The kid just got out of a genjutsu; forcing him into another would likely just mess him up more. Still, Kakashi files the thought away for later use. If there comes a moment that Naruto starts to suffer because he can’t sleep, Kakashi will force him to sleep. For now, it’s far too drastic.

Another idea pops up in his head, but he dismisses it immediately. It’s not as much an idea as it is a wish, and an unrealistic one at that. Kakashi remembers Minato and Kushina thinking up a lullaby for their unborn child, during the time that Kakashi had to guard Kushina during her pregnancy. If Minato and Kushina were here, then maybe they would be able to calm Naruto down enough to help him fall asleep.

The thought continues: if Minato and Kushina were here, would they sing that lullaby for their son? What if Kakashi could do that?

He shoves the idea from his head; it’s stupid. Kakashi remembers every word of that song – after Minato and Kushina’s deaths, it followed him in his dreams for years upon years – but he can’t sing it. It’s a stupid idea. The memory is still far too raw. Naruto is probably too old for lullabies anyway. It might even end up making things even worse than they already are.

But Naruto looks so small, once again so lost while he’d been doing fine all day. His gaze looks flat and unfocused; he’s clearly exhausted, both physically and mentally, but he’s too scared to go to sleep. He’s probably ready to doze off – if only he could calm down, but he can’t.

Kakashi takes one look at the helpless expression on Naruto’s face and realizes: if there’s one moment when Minato and Kushina would want Naruto to hear that lullaby, it’s now. He needs it.

Kakashi clears his throat, trying to move past the genuine fear that’s rising in his chest. He’s been trying to avoid this memory for such a long time. He can still back out now, but he knows he’d hate himself if he did. Minato and Kushina would want him to do this.

“Naruto. Hey, I’ve got an idea.”

Kakashi asks Naruto to lie back down, and to try to focus on his voice. That’s all he needs to do; hopefully, Kakashi can distract Naruto from the fear that he’s feeling, from the horrors that he sees when he closes his eyes. The whole point of a lullaby is to make someone calm enough to drift off into sleep. Theoretically, this should work.

Kakashi takes a breath. He remembers being thirteen and spending the summer sitting on the roof of Minato’s house. The windows were open every evening, to let in the cooling air. He remembers listening to how Minato and Kushina thought up the song, a few words every evening, because Minato would be tired from his Hokage duties and Kushina would be tired from being pregnant, and they’d both be too tired to work on it much. But they thought it was important to write that song for their child, so they made the time for it.

Kakashi remembers their voices drifting out as the sun began to set. They tried out different melodies, different words, and they scrapped the song completely a few times. They wanted to get it perfect.

When they finally finished the lullaby, it was autumn. The final version of the song was a duet. They were so certain that they would be able to raise their child together.

But they were never able to sing their lullaby to their son, not even once. If it weren’t for Kakashi, that song that they’d worked so hard on would’ve died along with them, without Naruto ever hearing it.

Before the burning in his chest becomes too much to bear, Kakashi exhales and sings.

He can just barely hear himself, his voice sounding far away and slightly muffled. For a brief moment, Kakashi can imagine that he’s back on that rooftop, listening to his sensei sing inside the house. Their voices sound nothing alike, but it’s hard to make out the differences through the ringing in Kakashi’s ears.

He remembers the song word for word, but he has to mumble around words like “child” and “family” – it’s not his place to sing the song exactly the way Minato and Kushina would have sung it. He hopes that they’ll forgive him for that. He silently promises that someday, when the law allows him to tell Naruto about his parents, he’ll tell Naruto where this song comes from, and teach him the words that his parents would have sung to him. For now, it’s far too big, and far too much.

He knows that he mumbles because of his terrible hearing, and he’s sure that he misses a few notes that Kushina would have easily hit, but he tries his best. By the time Kakashi sings the last few words, he can feel his voice scratch in his throat. He tries to blame his hoarseness on their scarcity of water, but he knows that it’s because of emotion. There’s a familiar heavy feeling in the center of his chest – he feels this heaviness every time he thinks about his sensei and his wife.

When he breathes out, his breath is shaky. He closes his eyes, allowing himself a moment to slow down his heart rate. His head feels overfull with memories. He tries his best to tuck those memories away, to put them somewhere safely out of sight, where they belong. He’s dealt with them enough for today.

When he no longer feels like he’s going to fall apart, he opens his eyes and looks at Naruto – Naruto, who has fallen asleep at last, his chakra flow calm and slow.

Kakashi finds himself smiling. It’s nice that the lullaby finally has the effect that it was intended to have, after it’s given Kakashi sleepless nights for years.

He wakes Naruto up after an hour, like he’d promised. The first thing Naruto says, after he’s rubbed the sleep from his eyes, is: “You know, that song was a little weird, but it worked pretty well. I didn’t dream at all.” He yawns loudly and adds drowsily, “You have a very sleep-inducing singing voice. In a good way, I mean.” He dozes off again almost immediately afterwards, finally calm enough to fall asleep by himself.

Kakashi shakes his head and huffs a laugh to himself. Inexplicably, the heavy feeling in his chest feels a little lighter.

Kakashi can’t put it into words, but it feels like something inside of him has finally started to heal.

Chapter Text

Standing guard in the quiet of the night gives Kakashi more than enough time to ponder over his memories of Minato and Kushina, which are now awfully fresh in his mind. He’d normally loathe being alone with his thoughts for this long, but it doesn’t feel as bad as usual. It’s surprising – where those memories would normally make his heart feel so heavy that it’s hard to breathe, he now feels… fine. More fine than usual, at least.

It’s difficult to figure out why that is. Kakashi ends up blaming it on the blood loss and the physical exhaustion. He’s tired, and that must be messing with his head. That must be what’s making him think that he’ll be able to deal with his sensei’s death someday; it’s a naïve and frankly ridiculous idea, so it must be a result of his exhaustion.

For now, he entertains the thought, though. It’s nice, for once, to think about Minato and Kushina without feeling stabs of guilt and pain in his chest. He’ll probably go back to feeling awful again as soon as he’s back to his normal strength, but just for now, he allows himself to feel okay.

At some point during the night – Kakashi completely loses track of time, so he forgets to wake Sakura up to take over guard duty – Naruto wakes up and offers to stand watch. He seems well-rested, and he tells Kakashi with a grin that that “weird song” of his continued to keep his nightmares away. Kakashi can’t help but smile about that.

Kakashi wonders, as he lies down to go to sleep, if this was the first time anyone’s sung Naruto a lullaby. As much as the thought hurts, he supposes that it’s fitting that his first lullaby was the one his parents thought up for him.

Kakashi sleeps lightly, drifting in and out of sleep, as though his subconscious is trying to keep him awake so that he can keep an eye on Naruto. Thankfully, he can conclude that the kid seems as okay as can be expected. It seems that Naruto is a lot better at dealing with stuff than Kakashi was at his age.

The relative calmness continues into the morning. At sunrise, Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura eat a little bit of their ration bars. Naruto seems to have picked up on the fact that this is all the food they have, so he doesn’t eat as much as he did yesterday. Maybe Sakura told him. At any rate, it saves Kakashi the trouble of having to explain the concept of food rationing to a hungry twelve-year-old who just went through psychological torture.

When he steps aside for a bit to check on his wound, he notices that the cut looks about the same way it did when he last checked on it. It had looked like it was healing, but it doesn’t look like it’s healed any further. It’s not surprising; Kakashi hasn’t been eating all that much, and he’s been walking a lot. He can already imagine the Leaf’s medical-nin throwing a fit about the distances he’s walked with an upper leg that’s basically split in two. Oh, well. There’s not much he can do about that, anyway. As long as the wound isn’t getting any worse, there’s no reason to make a fuss, he decides as he bandages up his leg again.

There aren’t many things that Kakashi needs to worry about right now, he notices to his surprise as he returns to his students. Naruto seems to be doing okay, Sakura has gotten used to working around her broken arm, and Kakashi isn’t doing too bad, either. Things are quiet – which is good, because that allows Kakashi some space to think about a new problem that’s coming up.

He eyes Sasuke, who is lying on the grass next to him. Sakura’s gaze draws towards him as well; Kakashi has no doubts that she’s thinking about the same things that he’s been mulling over.

“Kakashi-sensei?” she asks, right on cue. She fidgets uneasily with the hem of her dress. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the human body can only go three days without water, right?”

Kakashi nods, feeling the weight of his response. “That’s right.”

“Then, if Sasuke doesn’t get any water today, he’ll…” Her voice trails off, but she pushes on: “He’ll die, won’t he?”

“Not right away,” Kakashi says, but he knows that that’s not a very reassuring answer to give. He looks at Sasuke, at his slack face and closed eyes. “If he doesn’t get any water today, his organs will start to shut down. It could be another two days before he actually dies.”

“Oh.” Sakura’s face seems to have lost some color. Naruto, too, looks paler than before, which makes a lot of sense – he’d just woken up from a bunch of nightmares in which all of his teammates died, and now, he’s confronted with the possibility that one of his teammates could actually die.

“But, uhm,” he asks, a line between his eyebrows as he looks from Sasuke to Kakashi and back, “can’t we just… give Sasuke some water? We have plenty, right? You filled our flasks just yesterday, sensei.”

Sakura gives him a sad little smile. “He won’t be able to swallow anything we give him,” she replies quietly. “He’s used up so much of his chakra, and he’s deeply unconscious. His reflexes don’t work correctly. He might choke.”

“But what if we’re really careful?” Naruto protests. “Really really careful?”

He and Sakura look up at Kakashi, and Kakashi sees the desperate hope in their expressions and sighs. He has been noticing that Sasuke’s chakra signature has slowly been growing less faint; if they’re lucky, he’s recovered enough of his strength to be able to swallow some water. Kakashi wouldn’t count on it, though. If that were the case, he would’ve probably woken up by now.

But he supposes he can’t rule out the possibility until they’ve tried. “We’ll have to be really really careful,” he emphasizes, lowering himself to the ground to give his students a stern look. “But we can try to give Sasuke a tiny bit of water. Just in case it works.”

He’d expected to see Naruto’s face light up like it always does when he gets his way, but instead, he only nods thoughtfully. “What do we do if it doesn’t work?”

Kakashi fishes a map from his backpack and points at a small dot just South of where they are. “There’s a small village at a few hours’ distance from here,” he says. “It’s just a civilian village, so there won’t be anyone there who knows medical ninjutsu, but there’ll likely be a civilian doctor who can give Sasuke the fluids he needs.” Standard-issue first-aid kits don’t come with IV supplies, but civilian doctor’s offices do. He puts his map away again. “The detour would add an extra day of traveling to our journey, though. So let’s hope that Sasuke is somehow strong enough to drink on his own.”

They take a couple of minutes to talk through their plan and get into position; none of them want to pour water directly into Sasuke’s lungs, so they’re careful in their preparation. Kakashi drags Sasuke into a sitting position, propped up against Kakashi’s side, his face angled down slightly so that the water will hopefully drip out of his mouth if he doesn’t swallow it. Naruto agrees that Sakura is more careful than he is, so she gets the task of pouring a little bit of water into Sasuke’s mouth. Naruto has to hold Sasuke’s head still while she does so. He places his hands on both sides of Sasuke’s face, unceremoniously squeezing his cheeks with his palms until his mouth opens a little. Kakashi is sure that Sasuke would’ve hated it if he’d been awake for it.

At Kakashi’s sign, Sakura slowly raises the flask to Sasuke’s mouth, maneuvering around Naruto’s arms. Only a few drops of water slide out of the flask at first; just enough to make Sasuke’s dry lips look less dry. Sakura exhales a shaky breath, steadying her hand, and pours a slightly bigger amount of water into Sasuke’s mouth.

Despite all of their hoping, nothing happens. After a second or so, the water dribbles out of the sides of Sasuke’s mouth again, dripping down his chin and onto the front of his T-shirt.

Sakura lowers the flask with a disappointed nod. Naruto lets go of Sasuke’s face and sits back. “Well,” he says, his shoulders slumping. “Off to the village we go.”

Kakashi reaches out to ruffle his hair. “It’s not all bad,” he says, pushing himself to his feet. “We’ll be able to get Sasuke some actual medical attention, instead of just the three of us trying our best. It’d be good for the rest of us to see a doctor, too. And we’ll be able to stock up on food.”

Naruto’s expression brightens a little at that, though he scrunches up his face in thought immediately. “I thought you told those bandits you were broke.”

“I lied,” Kakashi replies with a grin. “A little too convincingly, it would seem.”

Naruto sticks his tongue out at him, pulls Sasuke onto his back, and hurries to lead their way.

After that, they don’t stop walking. There’s something in the urgency of his students’ footsteps that makes it impossible to tell them to take a break. They eat their lunch as they walk.

Naruto and Sakura are quiet, and it’s unnerving. They seem to notice it themselves, too – at some point, Naruto turns to Sakura and gives her a worried look.

“There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” he asks her. “You’ve been looking like you’re about to cry.”

“I’m not going to cry,” she replies quickly. She shakes her head, dropping her gaze to the ground. “It’s just… I tried so hard to protect Sasuke – you and Sasuke both. I fought to make sure you both survived. And now…” She bites down hard on her lip. “And now he might die anyway. No matter how hard I tried to save him.”

“He’s not going to die,” Kakashi reminds her gently. “We’re going to get him to a doctor, and he’s going to be fine.” He reaches out and puts a hand on Sakura’s good shoulder. “The only reason why he’s going to be fine, is because he didn’t die when we fought those bandits. And that’s thanks to you, Sakura.”

She’s still staring at the ground, but she nods. “I just keep thinking about all the ways that this could go wrong,” she replies quietly.

So does Kakashi – and he can’t give her any assurance that everything is going to be okay. He has enough experience to know that things don’t always go to plan. “Worrying isn’t going to change anything,” he says, squeezing Sakura’s shoulder before letting go. “If anything, it’s just going to tire you out. So just focus on the things that we can do to help Sasuke.”

Sakura’s footsteps speed up a little after that. Kakashi tries his best to keep up. His leg protests, but he figures he’ll just have to bear it. The sooner they get Sasuke to a doctor, the less time they have to spend worrying.

The path to the village is quiet, which Kakashi sees as a good thing – the last time Team Seven encountered other people, they barely escaped with their lives. The less people they come across, the better.

So they follow the empty path, in silence. Sakura leads the way, followed by Naruto, who carries Sasuke. Kakashi, the slowest of the team, brings up the rear. Every now and then, Sakura and Naruto look over their shoulders to check on him.

Their pace is fast, the fastest it has been since the last time their lives were in danger. At some point, though, Sakura notably slows down. She turns around to exchange a glance with Naruto, who nods. They seem startled, Kakashi notices to his alarm.

With wide eyes, Sakura holds up her hand at Kakashi, and she signs: “There’s people closing in on us. I can hear them getting closer.”

Oh, no.

Kakashi’s Sharingan snaps open, adrenaline rushing through his body. “How many?” he signs back. His other hand reaches for his weapons pouch.

Sakura holds up two fingers, but she adds: “Not certain.”

Kakashi grimaces. Even if she’s right and there’s only two people coming at them, there’s only one person in Team Seven who is really fit to fight right now – and Kakashi really doesn’t want to put that kind of pressure on Naruto. The kid would have to protect three people by himself. If something happened to any of them, Kakashi doesn’t dare think about what that would do to Naruto’s mental state.

Kakashi takes a breath. Whatever happens, he has to make sure they don’t get caught up in another fight. He’ll have to rely on genjutsu, or maybe ninjutsu, and he’ll likely use up the small amount of chakra he has left.

He decides that it’s worth it.

“Get into defensive formation,” he hisses at his students. Naruto and Sakura turn their backs to him and both pull out a kunai of their own. Kakashi’s Sharingan scans the forest around them, waiting for a chakra signature to enter his field of vision.

Somewhere deep down, there’s a naïve hope that his students have misread the situation – that they’re freaking out over some random civilian passersby. He knows they’re more skilled than that, though. They’ve got more than enough experience to recognize a threat.

Suddenly, something moves in the corner of his eye. It’s an unfamiliar chakra signature, poking out from behind a tree, only a few meters to the side of the path. Kakashi doesn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if his students hadn’t heard their attacker approaching.

As he watches, the guy pulls out a glimmering knife.

Kakashi’s gaze shoots up to the guy’s eyes – but before he gets the chance to put him under genjutsu, a blur of orange launches itself at the guy.

Naruto.

Their attacker lets out a startled cry as Naruto tackles him to the ground. “The kid’s got a knife!” he yells, and Kakashi is harshly reminded that their attacker isn’t alone. “Hurry up!”

Kakashi turns around hurriedly, hoping to stop whatever their attacker’s companion is about to do. He turns around just in time to watch the woman rush towards him, wielding a knife of her own.

Kakashi tries for a split second to make eye contact with her, but he decides pretty quickly that he should really focus on the knife that she’s trying to drive into his stomach. He blocks the blade with a kunai. The simple movement almost pushes him off balance.

The woman pulls back and takes another swing at him. Kakashi blocks the knife again. He can feel his blood rush in his ears. This woman is slow – definitely untrained, probably a civilian – but he is almost equally slow right now. It’s frustrating, and nerve-wracking.

She jabs the knife at him again. Her other hand reaches for the side of his backpack. Kakashi wishes that he could use that fact to his advantage, but all of his attention is focused on not being stabbed. He can barely move well enough to defend himself, let alone to attack her.

The woman grits her teeth, clearly annoyed that she hasn’t hit Kakashi yet. With a yell, she throws herself at him, trying to knock him off balance. The Sharingan sees it coming; Kakashi knows he can dodge with time to spare, so he takes a step back--

And his leg gives way underneath him.

Sakura cries out behind him, but the sound is drowned out by a wave of pain as he hits the ground. He chokes back a groan. His eyes squeeze shut reflexively, but he forces them open and raises his kunai. The edges of his vision have gone dark.

He can feel his breathing quicken with panic. This isn’t good. He’s on the ground, he can’t get up, his opponent now knows his weakness. This can only end badly.

…except for the fact that Sakura is holding a kunai against his opponent’s throat.

The woman’s eyes are wide, staring down at Sakura’s face. As Kakashi watches, the woman raises her hands. “I surrender,” she says, and Kakashi doesn’t need his hearing to notice the shocked tremor in her voice. “I surrender. I’m sorry.”

Sakura has her back to Kakashi, but he can vaguely hear her growl: “Drop the knife.” The woman quickly throws the knife to the side. She looks terrified. Kakashi doesn’t blame her; Sakura’s shoulders are heaving with anger, and she tightens her grip on her kunai.

It’s only then that Kakashi’s mind kicks into action again. “Don’t kill her,” he says hurriedly. “Sakura, she surrendered. Leave her alive and tie her up.”

There’s a tense pause, but then Sakura nods. “Somebody will need to help me with that,” she admits, not lowering her kunai. Kakashi had almost forgotten that she can only use one of her arms.

“What do I do with this guy?” Naruto shouts from behind Kakashi.

Kakashi turns around to see Naruto sitting on their other attacker’s back, pointing his blade at the back of his neck. “Tie him up, too,” Kakashi replies. “They’re civilians. We’ll hand them over to the village – they’ll know how to deal with them.”

“Right. I’ll help Sakura once I’m done, too.” Naruto reaches into his backpack to pull out a bundle of rope, still keeping his kunai pointed at the back of the guy’s head.

Kakashi watches him tie their attacker’s wrists together, and he breathes out slowly, tiredly pressing a hand against his wound. His leg hurts, the pain radiating down to his knee and up his side. It’ll probably be a while before he can stand again.

Thankfully, though, it doesn’t feel like any of the stitches are torn – he would’ve felt the wound start to bleed again if that was the case. The cut is still closed.

Relief blooms his chest, despite the pain that still creeps up his leg. This could’ve ended a lot worse. This could’ve ended so much worse. But everyone’s made it out okay. He checks on Sakura, on Naruto. They both look entirely unharmed. Kakashi lets the tension fall from his shoulders. They’re all okay.

Out of habit, he looks over at Sasuke – and his shoulders stiffen again.

There’s a woman crouched next to Sasuke on the ground. She’s dragged him half upright, her fingernails digging into his face. A kitchen knife points at his chest.

“Let my brother and sister go,” she snarls, “and hand over all of your stuff. Surrender, or I off the kid!”

Chapter Text

On a sunny afternoon in June, as his team fought off a ton of bandits and a missing-nin, Sasuke knew two things.

One: that Team Seven had the worst of luck. They’d managed to turn a boring C-rank mission into something that may even be too much for their ex-ANBU teacher. Somehow, Team Seven just always found itself in the worst of situations. There was hardly even anyone that Sasuke could blame for this nonsense.

And two: that his teammates were really horrendously bad at protecting themselves.

He watched Naruto get caught in a genjutsu, watched as he fell down and didn’t get up. The idiot never even saw it coming, and it didn’t surprise Sasuke in the least that he didn’t know how to break a genjutsu.

He watched Kakashi rush into battle without a second thought, using nothing but kunai against someone whose threat level was unknown. He insisted on facing all of these opponents by himself.

And just when Sasuke thought that his team had reached the height of idiocy, Sakura tried to protect Sasuke instead of the other way around. While he’d asked her kindly to get out of here and to stay safe.

It seemed like his teammates had a damn death wish – while Sasuke had finally realized that he didn’t mind being around them. He’d only just started to accept their presence, and now all of his teammates were being stupid enough that they might end up dead. They might die, while Sasuke had only just decided that he wanted them alive.

That was, mainly, what made him grit his teeth and keep fighting. His teammates were too dumb to protect themselves, so Sasuke had to protect them instead.

But his teammates were making it pretty difficult to protect them, and Sasuke was running low on chakra.

It was frustrating, he thought as he struggled to stay on his feet, his vision swaying. He’d tried to keep Sakura out of the fight, only for her to ignore him and put herself in danger again. He’d tried to help Kakashi fight off the bandits, but it didn’t seem to be enough. For some reason, Kakashi also seemed to be holding back. He hadn’t used genjutsu or ninjutsu even once. Did he think that Sasuke would be in danger if Kakashi fought all out? Even just the idea made Sasuke’s blood boil.

The dark spots in his vision made it hard to focus on the battle around him – he didn’t even realize that he was about to get stabbed until Sakura grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the side. A knife zipped past his ear. Startled, he spun around and reflexively wove a sign--

He could physically feel his chakra run out.

He fell to the ground, too numb to even hold out his hands to break his fall. His shoulder hit the ground painfully, the shock radiating through his entire body. It felt like every nerve in his body had suddenly developed frostbite.

Sasuke wanted to punch himself. In his instinctive reaction to protect his teammate, he’d now made sure that he couldn’t protect anyone anymore. The frustration was intense enough that it made his vision go black.

When he next opened his eyes, Sakura’s face was hovering above his. There was blood on her cheek. Maybe it was her own blood, maybe it wasn’t, but at any rate, it meant that she’d at some point been in danger while he was passed out. She wouldn’t have been in danger if she’d just listened to him.

“I told you to stay out of it,” he forced out. There was more that he would’ve liked to say – she should be careful from now on, she shouldn’t rush back into the battle again, she should try to stay alive – but the simple effort of talking knocked him out again.

At some point, he became aware of Sakura’s voice screaming next to him. Although she was screaming, she didn’t sound scared; it sounded like a battle cry. It was so unlike Sakura that Sasuke wondered if the sound was even real at all, or whether it was just inside his head.

He lay on the ground, hidden behind some bushes, only vaguely aware of what was happening around him. He was cold and numb, and every time he tried to fight his way back to consciousness, he only succeeded in making himself pass out again.

He could see smoke in between the leaves of the bushes, the glade almost entirely hidden from view, but every once in a while, he caught a glimpse of the battle that was still going on.

He didn’t consciously process the glimpses right then and there, his body too busy drifting in and out of consciousness, but he remembered a handful of images afterwards. Judging by the fact that those moments were etched into his mind in perfect detail, his Sharingan must’ve been activated, though he didn’t remember feeling them activate.

He remembered watching Kakashi punch a chidori through a bandit’s chest, the blood looking pale in the blue light. It wasn’t the first bandit that Kakashi had killed that way, judging by the bodies that lay on the ground, but Sasuke hadn’t seen him fight. This was the last bandit that still stood upright; now that he was dead, it was just Kakashi and the missing-nin.

He remembered watching the missing-nin swing his sword, the smoke swirling around as though it was frantically trying to flee from the blade. Kakashi stood too close to the sword, far too close. He could easily be cut in half like this. He could die. Sasuke wanted to yell at Kakashi to step back, but he only succeeded in making himself black out again.

The next time he opened his eyes, there was blood. A kunai stuck from the missing-nin’s shoulder. Kakashi was holding on to his leg, blood pooling underneath him. Sasuke wanted nothing more than to get up and jump into the fight, but he couldn’t move. The frustration made dark spots appear in his vision.

There was the glint of a kunai. The spark of an explosive tag. A second kunai landed in the missing-nin’s chest, and he cried out. Almost immediately, he threw an explosive tag towards Kakashi’s head.

Kakashi ducked away, his wounded leg folding underneath him. Sasuke caught a glimpse of a grimace before the explosive tag erupted into light and noise. And as the light and the noise faded to darkness and silence, so did Sasuke’s consciousness.

The next thing he knows, he’s sitting upright, and something sharp is digging into his cheek.

His eyes snap open, and he’s met with bright sunlight instead of smoke, making him squint. He’s immediately bombarded with the sight of five chakra signatures. Three are familiar, two are not familiar, and all of them are agitated. And all of these people are looking at him with varying degrees of anxiety.

Naruto is standing next to some guy who’s tied up on the ground. Sakura is holding a kunai to a woman’s throat. Kakashi is sitting on the ground, for some damn reason. Despite the fact that a fight clearly happened here not too long ago, and despite the fact that they should really all focus on themselves, they’re all looking at Sasuke.

Sasuke wills his sluggish brain into action. Something is happening. Something is happening, and it is seriously stressing his teammates out. They’re all looking at him. There’s also a hand gripping his chin, the nails poking into his skin – and judging by the looks on his teammates’ faces, this person is somebody hostile. Sasuke glances down and catches a glimpse of a knife, pointing at his chest. Definitely hostile.

Is he… Is he being held hostage? Is somebody using him to manipulate his teammates?

Anger flares up inside him, burning hot in his cold body, but he doesn’t move. Frustrating as it is, he knows that he cannot fight himself free. His body feels unbearably heavy, not to mention that he would risk getting stabbed. He’s forced to leave this to his teammates, at least for now.

Kakashi slowly gets to his feet, his expression a mix between a cautious look and a grimace. Sasuke notices that he’s leaning all of his weight to one side – he vaguely remembers seeing that Kakashi injured his leg during his fight against the missing-nin. So he didn’t get that treated properly.

Sasuke also notices, now that he looks a little closer, that Sakura’s arm is in a splint. She got hurt at some point, too, then. Naruto looks the least injured of them all, but there’s visible panic in his gaze, and he’s quiet. This impulsive, inobservant, optimistic moron has somehow developed enough combat sense to realize what’s at stake. Obviously something is wrong with him, too.

What exactly happened to his team while Sasuke wasn’t looking?

Kakashi hesitates, his eyes flicking between Sasuke and whoever is pointing that knife at his chest. Sakura scowls at the person behind Sasuke. Naruto grits his teeth.

Adrenaline floods through Sasuke’s body. His teammates have lost everything that made them efficient in battle. Kakashi has lost his speed, Sakura has lost her level-headedness, and Naruto didn’t have much to lose to begin with, but he always used to spring into action before anyone else could react. Now, he’s just silently freaking out.

Sasuke can’t leave this to his teammates. If he does, he will die. No, scratch that; he’s pretty sure that if his teammates try to fight right now, they will die.

So he does the only thing he can, in his current state and position. He jerks his knee upwards with as much force as he can, pushing his attacker’s knife away from his body. In the split second before his attacker can react, Sasuke ducks his head down and bites the hand that’s gripping his face.

A woman’s voice yelps in surprise, and the grasp on his chin weakens. Sasuke pulls himself loose, ignoring the way his muscles protest against the sudden movement.

He’d naïvely hoped that he’d be stronger than he feels, but he’s barely strong enough to keep himself upright. He sways to the side. His instincts scream at him to get up and fight, but it appears that he can’t even keep himself from falling over.

Sasuke’s attempt at getting free may have been weak, but at least it manages to spur Naruto into action. Before Sasuke ends up on the ground, a hand grabs his shoulder and keeps him upright. Two of Naruto’s clones twist his attacker’s arms behind her back.

“That was close,” Naruto says from behind Sasuke. “That was a good move. Glad you’re up, Sasuke.”

“Yeah,” Sasuke murmurs back, and he tries not to think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t woken up right here and now.

Naruto ties up the three attackers while Sakura pats them down for hidden weapons. Kakashi sits with Sasuke, both trying to catch their breaths. Sasuke drinks a whole flask of water, trying hard to pace himself; his stomach is empty, and if he drank a lot of water at once, he would definitely throw up. Still, he hadn’t realized how thirsty he was.

Kakashi tells him that he’s been unconscious for almost three full days. Sasuke doesn’t really know how to react to that. More than anything, he just feels like his team’s condition really wasn’t good enough to haul around his unconscious body. It kind of pisses him off that his teammates neglected to take care of themselves.

At some point, Naruto and Sakura sit down beside them; one of Naruto’s clones keeps an eye on their captives. Or maybe that’s the real Naruto. Sasuke realizes belatedly that his Sharingan are no longer active.

Now that he’s no longer seeing in shades of red – the Sharingan’s vision is, annoyingly enough, colorblind – he can see the bruising on Sakura’s arm, the paleness of Kakashi’s face. His teammates are hurt, and they’re hurt because they didn’t let Sasuke protect them, and with that realization, something snaps inside him.

“You’re really stupid, you know that?” He looks each of his teammates in the eyes, to make sure that they see the fury in his gaze. “That fight against the bandits was a damn disaster. I tried to protect you from yourselves, but you were so dumb that you almost got yourselves killed.”

Naruto frowns at him. “What are you talking about?”

Sasuke ignores him and locks eyes with Sakura instead. She flinches. “I told you to stay out of the fight,” Sasuke tells her, “and you decided not to listen. You broke your arm because you put yourself in danger.”

He turns his gaze to Kakashi next. “I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened if we’d listened to you,” he snaps at him. “You can’t give us orders to flee when it’s so obvious that you can’t take on the enemy by yourself. We would’ve left you to die. Is that what you want? It definitely looks like it.”

Sasuke turns to Naruto and scoffs. “And of course the biggest idiot’s the only one who made it out okay--”

“That’s enough.”

That’s Sakura’s voice, and it’s forceful enough that it briefly catches Sasuke off guard. “That’s enough,” she repeats, her hand balling into a fist. “Don’t yell at us like that. Did you know that I broke my arm when I protected you from getting killed, when you’d pushed yourself to the point of passing out? I killed someone to protect you. Did you know that?” She clenches her jaws. “And don’t even get me started on what Naruto has been through. Kakashi-sensei, too.”

“None of that would’ve happened if we’d just been more careful,” Sasuke retorts. “We should never have fallen into those bandits’ trap in the first place. Whose idea was that, again?”

“All right,” Kakashi interrupts him; his voice is calm, and that just frustrates Sasuke more. “All right. You’ve both made your points. Take a breath, both of you. Yelling won’t solve anything.”

“Fine,” Sasuke grumbles, suddenly too tired to say anything else. Whatever strength allowed him to fight off his attacker and yell at his teammates, it’s gone now. His throat hurts.

Sakura has tears in her eyes, but she, too, stays quiet. The tense silence lasts a while before Kakashi speaks up again.

“Sakura, Naruto,” he says. “You should go and hand the robbers over to their village. I’d like to talk to Sasuke for a bit.”

Naruto and Sakura protest against the idea, but eventually, Kakashi manages to convince them to go. It’s the most efficient way of going about things; if Team Seven leaves these robbers tied up in the woods, they might break free and come after them. The risk of that happening is a lot smaller if the robbers are put in jail.

On top of that, they should stock up on food. More importantly, they’re likely going to run out of painkillers soon. Kakashi can’t walk without them, and Sakura has been taking them to manage the pain from her broken arm. Now that Sasuke is awake, it won’t be long before the numbness in his body fades away and the muscle soreness begins. Kakashi has been through chakra exhaustion often enough to know how much that sucks. They’re going to need some sort of pain meds if they want to make it home.

He sends Naruto and Sakura off with some money, and he asks them to put away their headbands – if nobody knows they’re shinobi, they won’t stand out as much. “See if you can find a way to contact Konoha,” he adds. “If we can let them know that we’re out here, then maybe they’ll be able to send out a rescue squad.” It’s a long shot, but contact with Konoha would seriously improve their chances.

Naruto and Sakura leave with the robbers in tow. Naruto looks over his shoulder, looking worried. Kakashi hopes that there’s reassurance in the wave that he gives in return.

He knows it’s risky, to send his students off on their own, even if it’s just for an hour or so. But Naruto and Sakura are his most battle-ready students right now, and Kakashi can’t walk well enough to join them. The adrenaline had masked the pain somewhat, but that fall that he took during the fight aggravated his wound pretty bad. He’s sure that he’d pass out from the pain before they would even reach the village. Frustrating and terrifying as it is, he needs to rest.

As soon as Naruto and Sakura disappear from view, he cuts open his fingertip with a kunai and summons a ninken. He knows that there are likely no people out here who are truly dangerous – if this part of the woods was the territory of someone actually dangerous, those civilian robbers wouldn’t be out here – but considering their current condition and their terrible luck, it’s for the best to have some protection.

Shiba pops into existence with a cloud of smoke, and Kakashi wipes his sweaty hair out of his face, feeling a little light-headed. That fight already took a lot out of him, and summoning a ninken has reduced his already meagre chakra reserves to almost nothing.

Sasuke watches Shiba with a frown on his face. “Why not have Naruto make a clone?” he asks. “Not that I particularly like having him around, but it seems a lot smarter to have a human guarding us.”

Shiba bares his teeth at Sasuke, and Kakashi smiles wrily. “Naruto’s still recovering from chakra exhaustion,” he says. “He’s been doing well so far, but he won’t be able to keep up a Shadow Clone jutsu for that long.”

Sasuke gives a hum in response. Kakashi can’t tell what the sound means, exactly, but he does recognize that Sasuke doesn’t want to talk. Instead of continuing their conversation, Kakashi pulls the first-aid kit from his backpack. He puts a band-aid on the finger that he just cut open, and then he turns to Sasuke.

“You have a scratch on your face,” Kakashi says, gesturing at Sasuke’s cheek with his chin. That robber’s nails had cut through his skin. “Let me take a look at it. Humans’ nails are gross; it’ll get infected if we don’t take care of it, and that’d just be stupid.”

“I can do it myself,” Sasuke replies, true to form. He grabs the first-aid kit, but his hands are shaking too badly to even grab the band-aids. He grimaces, frustrated.

Kakashi watches him struggle for a while – the least he can do is to give Sasuke the opportunity to accept defeat – before he gently cuts in: “You know, you don’t have to do everything by yourself. That’s what you’ve got teammates for.”

Sasuke’s gaze is sharp. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Kakashi shrugs, because Sasuke is right, and it’s exactly the kind of response that he should’ve expected. “I realize that I shouldn’t have given you the order to retreat,” he says with a nod. “It wasn’t fair.”

He means it. In the heat of battle, he’d forgotten that he’s leading a genin team instead of an ANBU squad. ANBU are prepared to sacrifice their lives if it’ll lead them to victory; they’re prepared to let their squadmates make that choice. If necessary, ANBU are prepared to leave their squadmates behind. That’s the kind of life that Kakashi has learned to live.

But to these genin, he isn’t expendable. He isn’t a faceless tool in the hands of the village, a sacrifice to be made when the need arises. To them, he’s something different. And Kakashi, who’s been preaching teamwork left and right, should’ve realized that sooner.

“Yeah, it wasn’t fair to you,” he repeats. “You were right to call me out on that.” He looks Sasuke in the eyes. “That being said, you basically gave Sakura the exact same order. Did you think that she was ready to leave you behind?”

Sasuke grumbles something, looking away. “I guess.”

“I think we both made the wrong call, in that moment,” Kakashi muses, sitting back. “That battle got messy. All I know is that if any of us had acted differently, maybe someone would’ve ended up dead.” He gives Sasuke a tired smile; “And I, for one, am quite glad that we all made it out alive.”

“I’m not getting my hopes up. We’re still a long way from home, and I have to rely on my horrendously accident-prone teammates to get there. It doesn’t sound to me like we stand much of a chance of getting home at all, let alone that we get there alive.”

Well, at least he’s acknowledging that he needs his team’s help, so that’s something. He allows Kakashi to clean the scratch on his face without much protesting.

As Kakashi plucks a band-aid from the first-aid kit, he says: “Hey. Sasuke.”

“Hm.”

“Why did you yell at us just now?” Kakashi asks him. He makes sure that his tone is as indifferent as possible; if he sounds like he cares too much, Sasuke will probably just tell him that it’s none of his business. “Is it really us that you’re mad at, or is it something else?”

Sasuke remains silent. Kakashi briefly wonders if he’s going to reply at all, but then Sasuke murmurs: “I don’t know. Kind of.”

Kakashi puts the band-aid on Sasuke’s face. “What’s that mean?”

Sasuke pulls away as soon as the band-aid is in place. “All I want is for all of you to be safe,” he says, looking away. His voice rises; Kakashi can tell even despite his bad hearing. “I thought that that wasn’t too much to ask, but apparently it is, because the world seems to want you dead.” He scoffs. “I am sick of losing people. I refuse to lose anyone else.”

His words take Kakashi aback, though he tries his best not to show it. For a moment, Kakashi sees himself in Sasuke, bitter and angry and terrified after his father’s death. Kakashi, too, had made that same decision one day – the decision that he was not letting anyone else die.

Kakashi had failed, but Sasuke doesn’t have to go through the same thing. Kakashi can feel the importance of that thought. For a long time after he was first assigned Team Seven, he’d feared that history was repeating itself. Team Seven is so similar to Team Minato. It’s so similar to Team Minato that it scares Kakashi, sometimes.

Where Naruto and Sakura are far too reminiscent of Obito and Rin, Kakashi recognizes himself in Sasuke. The comparison is easily made; they’re both the last of their clans, and they’ve both seen horrifying loss with their own eyes. They’re alike. Kakashi had thought that that was a bad thing, that Sasuke would have to go through the same horrors that Kakashi has gone through, but he sees now that that doesn’t have to be the case. Where Kakashi’s team started to fall apart because he realized too late how much he cared about them, Sasuke has already had that realization. History is not repeating itself.

He’s… kind of proud, actually.

Kakashi ponders those thoughts for a bit, giving Sasuke the chance to calm down. When his furious breathing has slowed down somewhat, Kakashi turns to him.

“The world has been trying to kill me ever since I first became a shinobi,” he tells him. “I’ve been successfully avoiding death for over twenty-one years. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes during that time. I’ll never let myself make those mistakes again, though. This team will survive. Take my word for it.” He smiles at Sasuke. “You won’t lose anyone else. I promise.”

Kakashi means every word of what he said. For a moment, it feels like all the things he’s been through – all the loss, all the grief, all the pain – were worth it. Because that means that he’s learned enough to make sure that his team won’t have to experience the same heartache.

Sasuke looks him over, trying to gauge how serious he is. Eventually, he nods. “I’ll keep you to that promise,” he says. “And you’d better not forget that you aren’t allowed to die, either. Death wish or not, you’d better stay alive.”

Kakashi laughs. “I don’t have a death wish,” he says, and he realizes that he’s telling the truth. Oh, if only he could’ve told his younger self about this. “You don’t need to worry.”

“Good,” Sasuke replies. He seems too stubborn to show it, but he seems reassured.

Sasuke may not know about Kakashi’s past, but there’s an air of mutual understanding between them. Kakashi will tell him someday. Not now, though. Now, Sasuke’s systems seem to finally realize that he’s used up all of his energy by fighting and yelling, and he quickly falls asleep.

Kakashi sits in comfortable silence until Naruto and Sakura return.

Chapter Text

“I shouldn’t have yelled at Sasuke. I really shouldn’t have yelled at Sasuke. Why did I think it was a good idea to yell at Sasuke?”

It took Sakura a while, but the reality of the events from just now has finally started to sink in. The walk towards the village has cooled her head off a little, and now, she’s starting to consider turning around and going back to Sasuke. She has to apologize to him – she has to. She spent so much of her time trying to get him to like her, and now she probably screwed it all up.

Naruto doesn’t seem to catch on to Sakura’s despair. “You yelled at him because he was being an ass,” he says with a shrug. “And I actually think it was pretty cool.”

“He probably hates me,” Sakura sighs, running a hand across her face. “I mean, he already hates me, but he probably hates me even more now.”

One of the robbers rolls her eyes, which is a pretty bold move, considering that the three of them are tied up and are being dragged along. Sakura could easily punch her if she wanted to.

“I don’t think you need to stress about it,” Naruto says, shrugging again. “I mean, I’ve been yelling at Sasuke ever since I met him, and his opinion of me hasn’t changed.”

“If you ask me, he was kinda asking for it,” one of the robbers murmurs.

“Shut up,” Naruto tells him simply. “I mean, you aren’t wrong, but nobody asked for your opinion.” He turns to Sakura. “Listen, Sakura. Sasuke was being a jerk to you, and to all of us. It was really awesome of you to stick up for us.”

“He was being pretty harsh to you,” she agrees in a murmur. It’s definitely not unusual for Sasuke to snap at people, but he went a little too far when he yelled at Naruto and Kakashi today. It isn’t like it was their choice to be put through genjutsu and be cut open with a sword, respectively – but Sasuke certainly seemed to believe that it was their choice. It wasn’t right of him to shout at them the way he did. “But I’m still terrified of what he thinks of me now.”

Naruto gives that some thought. “Well, Sasuke was being stupid, but he’s not an idiot,” he then says. “He’s probably already realized that he went too far, so I don’t think he’ll do it again. And if he hasn’t realized that, then I’ll just shout at him some more when we get back.” He looks at Sakura with a teasing grin on his face. “Don’t worry about it too much. He said he didn’t want you dead, right? In Sasuke-speak, that’s probably a declaration of love or something.”

Sakura allows herself to sigh a long-suffering sigh. “A true romantic,” she replies, and Naruto laughs loudly.

They walk in comfortable silence for a bit, though Naruto gets bored at some point and starts pestering the robbers. Thankfully, his talking keeps Sakura’s worry about Sasuke from returning.

With some of Naruto’s questioning, it turns out that Sakura’s hunch was right: these robbers are inhabitants of this village, and they don’t have all that much experience robbing people. They just ran out of money one day and tried to find a faster way of earning cash.

“We figured you were easy targets,” the guy admits. “You were three kids and an adult who was clearly not in the best shape. Sure, you’re shinobi, but we figured we could take you on.” He huffs a sheepish laugh. “We didn’t expect that it’d be the kids we’d have to be afraid of.”

Naruto grins at him. “Well, you were wrong to underestimate us,” he says.

Naruto doesn’t seem to realize, but Sakura feels a sudden gnawing discomfort at the fact that these robbers estimated Team Seven to be an easy target, and that they could very well have been correct. She was confused as to why Kakashi-sensei has been insisting on showing as little weakness as possible – Sakura knows from experience that it must be taking him a lot of effort to hide his pain – but she’s starting to understand why that’s the case.

“We won’t be making that mistake again,” one of the women sighs – she’s the one that Sakura held at knifepoint. “We got our asses kicked by three ten-year-olds.”

“I’m actually twelve, so shut it,” Naruto says with a disproportionate amount of aggression, and Sakura can’t hold back her laughter.

By the time they reach the village, Naruto is making small talk with the robbers. It’s some sort of talent he possesses; he can talk about pretty much anything with pretty much anyone. For some reason, Sakura has a hunch that that talent is going to be very useful in the future.

The edge of the village subtly bleeds into the forest around it. Before they’ve truly realized it, the forest path has changed into a cobblestone road, and they’re surrounded by houses instead of trees. The road is mostly empty; there’s only a few people outside. They give Sakura and Naruto some weird looks, but they’re too busy working to really concern themselves with some strangers. That’s a good thing, Sakura reflects – it feels like it’s been ages since they’ve come across people who aren’t actively trying to kill them.

Still, Sakura has her guard up as they walk through the village, keeping her eyes and ears open for any signs of danger. She finds that her carefulness is unwarranted, mostly. The villagers send them some curious glances, but that’s not surprising; Naruto and Sakura’s companions are tied up with a rope, after all. To the average civilian, they must be a sight to behold. Especially since she and Naruto are pretending to be civilians, too. To these people, they look like ordinary kids, or that’s the idea at least.

The village is only small, so it doesn’t take Naruto and Sakura long to find the police office. The robbers protest on the way there, but they only protest a little; Sakura suspects that they haven’t forgotten about the kunai that she carries in her weapons pouch, right next to her newly-acquired kitchen knives.

They hand the robbers over to the police without much trouble. Pretty soon, Sakura and Naruto are standing on the cobblestone road again, now with empty hands and with the reassurance that they’ll probably never need to see those robbers’ faces again.

Naruto stretches his hands above his head, a satisfied grin on his face. “Now that that’s out of the way,” he says, “let’s go get some food!”

Sakura can’t deny that she shares his excitement; after days of eating nothing but ration bars, the notion of proper food sounds really, really great. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

They find their way to a convenience store. Apparently, it’s the only shop around, and it’s very small – almost infuriatingly so. Naruto and Sakura manage to scrape together a little bit of canned food, some fist-sized bags of nuts and dried fruit, and two apples. There isn’t much else that they could reasonably bring along on their travels; Sakura wishes she could bring fresh food, but the weather is warm and they’re constantly outside. The food would go bad in no time, and Sakura doesn’t want to imagine how much harder things would become if they got food poisoning.

It’s frustrating. Sakura and Naruto approach the counter with pretty much half of the shop’s wares in their arms, but Sakura already knows that this food likely won’t be enough. Their team consists of four people, and those people need to eat. Sure, Sakura herself doesn’t need much food to function, but her other teammates do; especially Kakashi, who’s probably twice her weight and using up thrice the energy that she is using, should really eat more than he’s eating right now. Sakura knows enough about diets to see that.

But there’s not enough food. Even combined with the ration bars they have left, even if they bought the entire section of canned food, it probably wouldn’t be enough to get them all the way home. They’ll likely have to start hunting for food at some point, which means that they’ll have to be lucky enough to find and catch wildlife. And Team Seven hasn’t had the greatest luck, lately.

Sakura doesn’t let that fear show on her face – she’s pretending to be a civilian, after all, and civilians generally don’t need to worry about starving in the woods. She smiles at the shopkeepers. They’re two elderly people, a man and a woman. Usually, civilians would’ve already been retired at their age, but it doesn’t surprise Sakura that these people are still working regardless. Judging by the state of this village, and judging by the state of this shop, money is in short supply around here. It’s suddenly not that strange that the inhabitants of this village would turn to theft and robbery in order to get money.

The shopkeepers nod at her, though they don’t smile; their gazes shift to the food that Naruto and Sakura are carrying. “That’s a lot of food for just two kids,” the man states, with no small amount of suspicion.

“Ah, well, we’re big eaters,” Sakura says quickly, before Naruto has the chance to reply and potentially blow their cover. She sets the bags of dried fruit that she’d been carrying down on the counter. “And we’ve been traveling. We need enough food to keep us going for the next few days.”

She decides that it’s safest to keep Kakashi and Sasuke’s existence a secret from these people. If they found out that they’re three children who are traveling with an adult, then it wouldn’t be hard for them to conclude that they’re part of a genin team. The less these people know about them, the better.

“Yep!” Naruto says, putting the food in his arms down on the counter as well. “We’re actually pretty lucky that we came across this place. We might’ve run out of food, otherwise.” He grins at the shopkeepers; “So thanks for being here!”

The shopkeepers seem to let go of their suspicion a little at that, and they start calculating the total price for the food. Sakura can’t help but be impressed with Naruto. When it comes to people, he has a knack for saying exactly the right thing. She’d never noticed that before.

As the shopkeepers handle the food, Sakura uses the silence to ask for directions. “Would you mind pointing us in the direction of the nearest doctor’s office?” she asks them. “I broke my arm while we were traveling. It kind of hurts, so I should probably get it looked at.” She doesn’t actually worry about her arm as much as she worries about her other teammates, but these shopkeepers don’t need to know that. She gives the shopkeepers a sad smile for good measure.

The shopkeepers share a look. “We’re sorry,” the man says. “The doctor used to practice from his home, but the house burned down a few nights ago. The poor man passed away.”

“Oh.” Sakura can feel some of the color drain from her face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“What about a pharmacy? Can we find that somewhere around here?” Naruto asks. It’s a smart question; if they can’t get any medical attention, then maybe they can at least fill up the first-aid kit again. Assuming that Kakashi has been taking care of his wound, he must be pretty close to running out of gauze and bandages.

“There’s a small drugstore down the street,” the woman says.

Sakura exhales a relieved sigh; it seems that the universe has granted them at least a little bit of luck. “One more thing,” she asks the shopkeepers. “Do you have a radio here?”

Suspicion sparks in the man’s eyes again, and Sakura has to hold back a wince. “What do you need a radio for?” he asks.

“Because we’re…” Naruto starts before Sakura can reply, and she hopes with a sudden rush of anxiety that he hasn’t forgotten that they’re pretending to be civilians. “We’re trying to get home,” he finishes. “If we can contact anyone at all, then maybe we can ask them for help.”

The woman sighs and shakes her head. “To my knowledge, there isn’t a single person in town who has enough money for a radio,” she says. “Or who has a need for one, for that matter. Only shinobi need radios, and they always bring their own. There aren’t any around here right now, though.”

Naruto and Sakura wisely keep their mouths shut at that. The food is overpriced, but Sakura doesn’t comment on it, and she pays for it fairly. She and Naruto don’t ask any more questions, and the shopkeepers seem to calm down a little.

As Sakura and Naruto stuff their newly-acquired food into their backpacks, the shopkeepers watch in silence. Sakura keeps an eye on them – she hasn’t forgotten the last two times she dealt with civilians. If she senses even the smallest bit of ill intent from them, then she and Naruto have to get the Hell out of here.

At some point, the man nods at the woman and beckons Sakura and Naruto closer. “Come here for a second, kids.”

They comply, though Sakura purposefully holds her hand as close to her weapons pouch as she can without arousing suspicion. The shopkeeper looks them over once more and reaches under the counter.

Sakura feels her adrenaline spike, but the man only smiles and holds out a tall jar at them. “You kids’ll probably be on the road for another while,” he says. “Here, take this as well.”

“Thank you,” Naruto replies, sounding somewhat surprised; he must’ve been expecting the worst-case scenario as well. He takes the jar. It’s filled to the brim with a reddish-orange soup.

Sakura reaches for the money in her weapons pouch. “How much--?” she starts, but the man just shakes his head.

“It’s on the house,” he says. “We’re sorry we couldn’t help you more.”

“It’s all right,” Sakura replies quickly. “We’re thankful for your help, anyway.”

They thank the shopkeepers again, and they leave the shop soon afterwards. As soon as they’re outside, Naruto angrily kicks a rock on the side of the road. “Why does bad stuff keep happening to us?” he grumbles. “We find a village in the middle of nowhere and they don’t even have half the stuff we need. I mean, it’s nice of those people to give us soup, but what we really need is a doctor.”

“I know,” Sakura says with a sigh. “Well, at least we have some food. We won’t starve any time soon. And we can still check out that pharmacy.”

Naruto’s face lights up. “Ah, right! I almost forgot about that.”

Their visit to the pharmacy lifts their spirits a little; they return from the shop with more painkillers and first-aid supplies than they’ll ever need to use, hopefully. They ask for directions to the doctor’s office again, and they ask again about a radio – “Maybe those shopkeepers from just now were lying for some reason,” Naruto reasons – but they’re once again told that they’re looking for things that they won’t find in this village. It’s frustrating, but it was still more than worth it to come to this village.

Without medical attention and without a way to contact Konoha, but with their backpacks filled to the brim with food and medical supplies, Sakura and Naruto hurry back to their teammates.

“Sasuke! Kakashi-sensei! We’re back!”

Sooner than Kakashi had expected, the loud sing-song of Naruto’s voice breaks through the ringing in his ears. He turns around and sees Naruto waving at him, Sakura following close behind. Shiba looks at them, too; his tail starts to wag immediately. Which is a good sign – Kakashi had briefly feared that someone had used a henge to make themselves look like his students, but it seems that that’s not the case. Shiba would’ve picked up on the unfamiliar scents.

Next to Kakashi, Sasuke stirs; Naruto’s loud voice has woken him up. Sasuke slowly sits up and rubs at his face. There’s a bit more color on his cheeks than there was before.

He looks Kakashi over, and then turns and watches Naruto and Sakura approach. His brow is relaxed – he doesn’t seem like he’s in pain, just tired. Kakashi guesses that it’d probably just annoy him if he asked how he’s feeling, so he decides not to ask.

“We brought food!” Naruto announces, as soon as he’s closer. He plops down on the ground and shrugs out of his – very heavy-looking – backpack. Sakura sits down next to him and puts her backpack down on the ground as well, though she does so with more carefulness. She doesn’t look at Sasuke.

Sasuke, on the other hand, is watching Sakura very intently. Kakashi is entirely prepared for him to start another argument, while that’s really not the way this conversation should go. He decides to carefully nudge Sasuke in the right direction.

“Isn’t there something you’d like to say to your teammates, Sasuke?”

Sasuke glares at him, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s being stubborn, but Kakashi knows that he’s willing to open up; he opened up to Kakashi, after all. He just needs another nudge.

“It’s all right,” he tells Sasuke, gently. “Just tell them what you told me.”

Naruto and Sakura are watching Sasuke closely, now. Sasuke scoffs and looks away. When he talks, Kakashi can only barely read his lips – he apologizes in a quiet murmur, but he apologizes all the same.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” he says, looking at the ground. “It wasn’t really you that I was mad at. I was just pissed that bad things happened to you and that I couldn’t protect you from it.” He looks both Naruto and Sakura in the eye, his gaze intense. “I’ll stop being mad if you promise not to die.”

“Sure,” Sakura replies, looking a little bewildered. “I wasn’t planning on dying, anyway.”

“Same here,” Naruto says.

Sasuke nods. “Good.”

Kakashi smiles. “Now that that’s out of the way,” he says, “let’s take a look at the stuff that you brought, Sakura and Naruto.”

Naruto proudly presents the contents of his backpack, and Sakura’s anxiety seems to have made way for pride as well. They’re right to be proud; they brought a bunch of food and enough medical supplies to fill a pharmacy.

Sakura apologizes for not being able to find enough food, and she brings more bad news: the village didn’t have a doctor, nor a radio. Kakashi isn’t surprised; if they’d found a way to contact Konoha or to get medical attention, then they wouldn’t have returned so quickly. He assures Sakura that he doesn’t blame her for stuff that she can’t help, anyway.

Kakashi fills up the first-aid kit again, and he notices to his amusement that the box becomes so full that he can barely close it anymore. As Naruto and Sakura divide the food across the four backpacks, Kakashi inspects the painkillers that they’ve bought. They aren’t as strong as the standard-issue painkillers for shinobi, but they’ll just have to do.

Lastly, Naruto proudly holds up a jar of soup. “We also got this!” he says. “The shopkeepers from the convenience store gave it to us.”

“We should probably eat it soon, or it’ll spoil,” Sakura adds.

Kakashi nods, and he smiles. “Let’s eat it tonight, then,” he says. “To celebrate that we’re all okay.” Nothing boosts morale quite like a good meal.

It’s actually ideal that they managed to get their hands on some soup, now that Kakashi thinks about it. Sasuke’s chakra exhaustion is pretty bad; it’s probably for the best that he eats something that’s relatively easy to digest. Kakashi has enough experience with chakra exhaustion to know that solid foods could give Sasuke a serious stomach ache, now that his body barely has enough energy to function.

They decide not to travel anymore, not today; it’s already getting late, after all, and they’ve had enough adventure for the day. Naruto and Sakura are visibly tired, and Sasuke may be awake, but he’s still not well enough to move much. And Kakashi’s leg feels a little better than before, but he knows that it would hurt like Hell if he got to his feet right now. They’ve traveled enough for today – they should rest now that they have the chance.

Naruto opens the lid of the jar, and he hands the jar to Sasuke. “You can have some first,” Naruto tells him.

“Why? So that you can figure out if it’s poisoned?” Sasuke asks, but there’s no real bite to the comment. He takes the jar. “I mean, it is kind of weird that some strangers just gave this to you,” he murmurs, studying the soup. “Especially if they’re as poor as you said.”

“It’s not poisoned,” Kakashi says, shaking his head in a reassuring gesture. “If it were poisoned, Shiba would’ve alerted us as soon as we opened the lid.” Shiba barks in agreement.

Sasuke eyes Shiba with some skepticism, but then he shrugs. He raises the jar to his mouth and takes a sip of the soup. “It’s tomato soup,” he says. He seems pleasantly surprised, although he tries to hide it.

He passes the soup along to Naruto, who drinks from it as well. “It’s good,” he says, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and he gives the jar to Sakura.

They all take turns drinking from the jar. Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke all look away whenever Kakashi has to pull his mask down to drink. Considering how much they’ve been pestering him to take off his mask, it’s amusing to see that they’ve adopted this much politeness when it comes to the matter of Kakashi’s face. He supposes it’s nice of them to give him a break. They can continue bugging him when they’re all home and healthy.

When they finish the soup, they sit in silence for a bit. Kakashi keeps an eye on Sasuke, making sure that he keeps the soup down, but Kakashi’s worry is unwarranted; Sasuke is doing fine.

So they sit there calmly, after the chaos of the day. Naruto and Sakura both look content; Kakashi is sure that they’re relishing in the fact that they’ve just had some proper food for the first time since they left the harbor. Kakashi can’t disagree – as much as he appreciates the convenientness of ration bars, he does feel a lot better now that he’s eaten some actual vegetables.

He sits back and watches the sky, watches the dimming sunlight fall through the leaves far above his head. Absently, he realizes that this is the first time in days that there’s a true sense of peace among Team Seven.

“Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura’s voice pulls him from his thoughts.

He looks down, raising his eyebrows. “What is it?”

“Well,” Sakura says, “I’ve been thinking. I might have a plan.” She realizes suddenly that everyone is listening to her, and she flinches a little, but she continues: “What if I run back to Konoha to get help?”

Naruto gives a gasp that can only be described as scandalized. “You can’t be serious,” he says.

Sasuke frowns at him. “What’s the problem? It doesn’t sound like a bad plan to me.”

“You-- What--” Naruto sputters, visibly struggling to get his thoughts in order. “Okay. Hang on. Sakura, I get why you think that that’s a good idea. I guess it makes sense. But you’re hurt. What if you run into trouble? You wouldn’t be able to fight back.”

“I’ve been able to fight back against everything we’ve encountered so far,” Sakura counters.

“Still,” Naruto says. “If something happened to you, we’d have to live with the guilt of letting you go while you’re hurt.”

“Then why don’t you run back to Konoha, Naruto?” Sasuke asks. “You’re not hurt.”

Naruto sighs. “I considered that,” he says. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you all behind. You saw what happened today – if I hadn’t been there, things would’ve gotten really ugly. No offense,” he adds, somewhat sheepishly, “but none of you are in the best shape. If you get caught up in another fight, I need to be there to protect you.”

Before Sasuke has the chance to react to that, Kakashi decides to step in. “Naruto is right,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about all of this as well, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t split up. Right now, we’re at our strongest when we’re all together. If we’d send one of us off on their own, then that would leave all of us vulnerable.”

“Yeah!” Naruto agrees, loudly. Sakura quietly turns her gaze to the ground; her plan has been shut down rather harshly, Kakashi realizes.

“That being said, Sakura,” Kakashi continues, turning to her, “sending someone to get help isn’t a bad idea. As soon as we’re less than a day’s travel away from Konoha, I can send one of my ninken to get us some help.” He’d already decided that, but he supposes there’s no harm in letting Sakura think that the plan is of her making. Her confidence needs that boost.

To his relief, Sakura smiles. “All right,” she says. “We’ll stay together, then.”

The mood lightens again, after that; Kakashi can tell that everyone felt uncomfortable about the idea of letting their teammates get out of sight. Right now, that discomfort is a good sign. It means that they understand that they need one another’s support.

They don’t talk about plans or problems anymore, not tonight – they’re all too tired to think about the serious stuff. Instead, they talk about food and the weather and a weird cat that Naruto saw in the civilian village and what they’re going to do when they finally get back home. There’s hope in their conversations, instead of worry. It seems that Sasuke’s awakening and the presence of proper food have done Naruto and Sakura good.

Shiba is there to keep watch, so Team Seven has the chance to get some sleep. Kakashi is the last to doze off; he watches over his students instinctively, though he knows he doesn’t have to. They’re safe, or at least the closest thing to safe.

He falls asleep with a warm feeling of peace in his chest.

Maybe things are finally looking up.

Chapter Text

When Kakashi wakes up the next morning, the sun seems a little brighter than it seemed before.

He squints against the light, raising a hand to rub at his face. He’s slept for longer than he meant to; the sun has already risen, which means that he’s slept for over six hours. He wouldn’t have minded sleeping for six more hours, he thinks groggily. That fight from yesterday must’ve taken a bigger toll on him than he’d realized.

The warmth from the sun stings his face. It’s weird, he realizes; judging by the position of the sun, it’s clearly still morning. The sunlight shouldn’t be as intense as it is.

He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to make peace with the fact that he’s going to have to walk all day in blistering heat. If it’s already this warm in the morning, then the rest of the day is bound to be excruciatingly hot. He’s already sweating, and his wound stings because of it. This is going to suck.

But, he realizes when he opens his eyes again, his students don’t seem to be bothered by the heat at all. Sakura is sitting around with Naruto’s jacket on, and Sasuke is rubbing his arms like he’s cold. Kakashi would’ve expected Naruto to already be in his face with loud complaints about the temperature, but that’s not the case. His students are reacting to the heat like it doesn’t exist at all.

Kakashi’s barely-awake mind is still trying to figure out why that’s the case when, just like that, the warmth disappears.

He stills, a chill running down his spine. He’s cold. The sunlight is still bright enough to hurt his eyes, but he suddenly feels cold. A shiver makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand upright. Only his right thigh remains alarmingly warm.

It’s only then that he realizes that something is wrong.

He raises a hand to his face again, pretending that he’s just tiredly rubbing a hand across his face when instead he’s trying to check whether his skin is too warm. He realizes with a shock of panic that he can’t tell. His face feels warm, sure, but he’s also sitting in the sun. Just the fact that he’s warm, on a sunny day in June, doesn’t necessarily mean that he has a fever. With a sigh, he lowers his hand and wills his sluggish brain to think rationally.

Best case scenario: he’s just tired and the weather is being weird and he’s completely overreacting.

Worst case scenario: his wound got infected. That’s what he fears the most. They’re in the middle of the woods, without access to medical attention, and he knows he’ll have to walk for at least a couple more days before they’ll reach Konoha. And on top of that, his students are relying on him to lead them back home--

He drags himself upright before he has a chance to overthink everything even further. He should just check on his wound. That’ll give him the answers he needs.

As soon as he gets to his feet, his leg protests with an overwhelming stab of pain. He chokes back a groan, not entirely successfully; his vision dims for a moment, his leg almost buckling underneath him. If he hadn’t managed to brace a hand on a nearby tree, he would’ve ended up on the ground.

He tries to catch his breath. The wound is still burning. Definitely not a good sign.

His students are sitting a few meters to the side – they turn around to look at him. “You okay, sensei?” Naruto shouts at him.

“Yeah, it’s all right,” Kakashi replies; his voice is more breathy than he would’ve liked. He clears his throat. “I just put a little more weight on my leg than I should have. I’ll be fine.”

He decides that he won’t worry his students until he’s absolutely certain that something is actually wrong. Something inside him still holds onto the hope that he’s panicking over nothing.

His students watch him as he walks away – he tries to reassure them with the first half-baked excuse that he can think of: “Just gonna go pee.” The concerned looks don’t disappear from their faces. Shiba moves to come with him, but Kakashi gestures for him to stay there.

Kakashi stays within shouting distance, but he makes sure he’s out of his students’ sight before he lowers himself to the ground. His eyes involuntarily squeeze shut as he moves; he hadn’t quite been awake enough to realize how much his leg hurts, but now, he’s awfully aware of the throbbing underneath his skin. It feels like there’s someone pushing down on his upper leg, leaning all of their weight down on it, their nails digging into his skin.

He takes a breath, trying to gather the courage to unwrap the bandages. It doesn’t have to be an infection, he tells himself in an attempt to calm down. His leg could still be hurting because of how he fell yesterday. Maybe he doesn’t even have a fever; he couldn’t tell for sure. And even if he does have a fever, maybe he just caught some summer cold. Or maybe the physical exhaustion has finally started taking its toll on him. It’s not unheard of.

But when he starts to unwrap the bandages around his leg and sees a large damp stain on the bandages, he knows. He knows, even before he looks at his wound, that it’s infected.

Not good.

He unwraps the bandages further, already knowing what he’ll see. Even though he was prepared, he can still feel his stomach twist. He’s no stranger to the swollen flesh, the red skin, the infection seeping out between stitches, the smell – but he feels vaguely nauseous all the same.

He sits back, swallowing down the feeling of defeat that’s rising in his throat. He really shouldn’t be surprised. It’s easy for wounds to get infected when you’re in the middle of nowhere – Kakashi has known that for years. And the cut on his leg is large. He should’ve known that he wouldn’t make it home without something going wrong.

But, naïve as he’s become, he’d allowed himself to hope…

He sighs and tries to force himself to think. It’s no use dwelling on the past, not right now. Shoving back his worry, he takes out the first-aid kit and digs through it. He hasn’t yet had the time to properly look through the medical supplies that Naruto and Sakura brought from the civilian village; maybe there’s something useful in there.

He’s hoping to find antibiotics, any antibiotics, but those kinds of miracles aren’t granted to him. His students brought a lot of things from the village, but no antibiotics. That immediately tells Kakashi that it’s no use going back to the village and looking for them, either; Naruto bragged about “buying practically the whole pharmacy”. If there had been antibiotics, they would’ve brought them.

Once again, Kakashi has to force down his panic. He tries to convince himself that it’s all right. This isn’t the first time he’s dealt with an infected wound, nor is it the first time he’s traveled great distances in pain and with a fever. The last time that happened was during a solo ANBU mission, when he’d somehow made it home with a broken wrist and with a crossbow arrow sticking from his side, while hallucinating from the lack of sleep. He’s had worse. He’s had so much worse.

But last time, he’d been younger, and more stoic. Things have changed since his days in ANBU. Some part of him wishes he still had the ability to turn off all of his emotions and focus purely on surviving, but he can’t do that anymore. He has his genin with him, now. If he stopped communicating, they would never make it home. Their chances of getting back to Konoha have already become significantly smaller because his wound got infected; if he shut himself off right now, those chances would only decrease further.

He has to focus on giving his team the best chance they can get. Which, concretely, means that he should try to keep his wound from getting worse than it already is, with the meagre supplies he has. And quickly, too, before his team realizes he’s been gone too long and comes looking for him.

He cleans the cut as well as he can, using the alcohol wipes that Naruto and Sakura brought. He knows that just cleaning the wound isn’t a long-term solution, or a solution at all, but he can at least hope that it’ll help somewhat. Well, he can pray, rather.

The alcohol feels like it’s eating away at his irritated skin, but Kakashi pushes through the pain. Despite his shaking hands, he manages to get the wound more or less clean. It looks a bit better, though it doesn’t feel that way.

Still breathing hard, Kakashi bandages his wound again. He should be glad that he doesn’t have to look at it anymore – the wound really isn’t a pretty sight – but he can’t help but feel like something bad will happen if he doesn’t keep his eye on the cut. The last time he looked away from it, it got infected, after all.

When he’s caught his breath and he feels somewhat well enough to walk again, Kakashi makes his way back to his students, trying hard not to limp as badly as his leg tells him to. He can tell that his students are watching him closely. Shiba seems restless as well.

Despite Kakashi’s efforts to hide his discomfort, Sakura’s eyebrows twitch into a concerned frown. “Is your leg still bothering you, sensei?” she asks.

Kakashi knows what his answer should be. He knows he should tell his students that his wound has gotten infected. And he knows, logically, that it’d be okay to tell them. His students aren’t ANBU; they won’t leave him behind if they think he’s slowing down the team, if they think that his weakness will put them in danger. Hell, these kids have flung themselves at enemies to protect him without a second thought, twice now during this mission. No matter how badly his pessimistic thoughts want him to believe that his students would leave him behind, it seems highly unlikely.

He opens his mouth to tell them, but what he says instead is: “I’m all right. We’ll be able to travel again today.”

He can’t tell his students. Not right now. These kids have been through Hell and back these past few days, and things are finally looking up. Sasuke is awake, after three days of being in a literal coma. Naruto is starting to forget about the fact that he went through a genjutsu that was probably designed for torture. Sakura has been worrying about her teammates non-stop for three full days, and now, she finally doesn’t have to do that anymore. Their stomachs are filled and their teammates are safe.

Morale is already low. His students need a moment of peace. If he gives them bad news now, then that might just be enough to push them towards despair.

He’ll tell them tomorrow, he decides. Today, they need a chance to catch their breaths.

Sakura barely seems reassured by his words, but before she can say anything, Kakashi claps his hands and says: “Let’s get going, guys. It’s already pretty late in the morning – we should try not to lose any more daylight.”

His students don’t ask any more questions as they take to the road, and Kakashi is thankful for that. It also helps that Sasuke insists on walking, instead of being carried; Sasuke hasn’t recovered from his chakra exhaustion yet, so he’s pretty slow, which disguises the fact that Kakashi is also slower than before.

It doesn’t take long before Sasuke starts tiring himself out, though, and Naruto convinces him to let Naruto carry him. Their pace picks up again, and Kakashi struggles to keep up. Each step sends a jolt of pain up his leg, despite the painkiller that he took. He tries his best not to show it.

Kakashi endures the pain, and he endures the fact that his body can’t decide whether it’s cold or hot, and he endures the worried glances that his students and Shiba occasionally throw his way. He loses himself in his head enough that he doesn’t realize that hours have passed until Sakura turns to him and says: “Can we stop for lunch? It’s already past noon.”

They stop, and Kakashi hadn’t realized how tired he’d gotten until he stands still. The near-constant shivering has made his muscles achy, and his head feels foggy. The fever has definitely delivered a hit to his stamina.

He lowers himself to the ground with considerably less elegance than he would’ve liked, breathing out through gritted teeth. It feels good to sit down. It’s going to be hard to get up again.

Before his students have the chance to ask him if he’s all right – and force him to lie again – he takes the two apples from his backpack. All eyes are immediately on the food; it’s a potent technique for distraction. Kakashi can’t help but smile underneath his mask.

He breaks the apples in two with his hands and divides the halves among his team. His students still look away when he has to take off his mask to eat, so Kakashi eats in peace. He realizes belatedly that he’d completely forgotten to eat in the morning. He feels slightly less terrible now that there’s something in his stomach.

The moment that his mask is back up, Naruto looks up and looks him in the eye. His expression is serious. “Hey, Kakashi-sensei?” he asks. “I’ve got a question.”

“What is it, Naruto?” Kakashi asks.

Naruto shifts in place with an almost uncharacteristic nervousness. “Well,” he says, “I’ve been wondering… You went down pretty bad during that fight from yesterday. What if your wound had opened again? What should we have done if that’d happened?”

Kakashi feels his blood run cold; an uneasy shiver creeps up his spine. He struggles against the reflex to shut himself off. He’s weak right now, and he does not want to talk about that – but he realizes that he’s a teacher now. And if there’s anything that these kids need to be taught, it’s this.

“Did no one ever teach you at the Academy?” he asks, trying to sound less uncomfortable than he feels. “I imagine that helping your team survive is a pretty vital part of a shinobi’s education.” He’s trying to force the attention away from him, from his vulnerability; they’re talking about some hypothetical teammate now, about someone else’s wounds, not Kakashi’s. With some luck, Naruto will get distracted by the word ‘Academy’ and go off on a tangent about Iruka or something.

But Naruto doesn’t get distracted, and the conversation continues. “Well, they taught us that you’re supposed to put pressure on wounds, and stuff,” he says, uncertainly. “It’s just that I’m not sure…”

…whether that would work, in this situation. His doubts aren’t entirely unwarranted, Kakashi admits reluctantly. If his wound had re-opened, he can’t say with certainty that pressure would’ve been enough to stop the bleeding.

“I get that you don’t want to talk about it,” Naruto says, when Kakashi doesn’t reply. He looks Kakashi in the eye with a frown on his face; his expression is a mix of determination and fear. “But I want to know what we should’ve done. Just in case.”

Naruto is right, of course. He’s right to ask, and Kakashi should reply. What kind of teacher is he, if he can’t even teach his students to survive when they’re wounded? How can he talk about teamwork if he can’t teach them to help someone else survive?

It takes a Herculean amount of effort, but Kakashi pulls himself together.

“You’re right. We do need to discuss this.” He looks his students in the eye. “So, let’s go over this together. If I really had ended up opening my wound again during that fight – what would you have done?”

He realizes, with no small amount of exasperation, that he sounds like Gai. He sounds like Gai when Gai is talking to his students, and he sounds like Gai because Gai is a teacher, and Kakashi is teaching. It’s a weird realization to have, and one that he will never admit to Gai; he’d never let him hear the end of it. And he’d cry about it. He’d definitely cry.

Naruto mulls over the question, still looking uncertain. “I don’t know what I would’ve done,” he mutters. “I’d’ve freaked out, probably.”

“That wouldn’t have helped,” Sasuke says non-committally.

Naruto scoffs at him. “Well, it’s not like your stupid comments would’ve been of any help, either,” he retorts. “Sakura, do you have any answers that would’ve been actually helpful?”

Sakura leans her chin on her hand, her expression thoughtful. “Applying pressure would’ve been the first step,” she says, “like you said, Naruto. And if that hadn’t worked, we could’ve tried to pack gauze directly into the wound and apply pressure like that.”

“That’s correct,” Kakashi replies. Imagining that scenario – the amount of blood, the panic that would’ve ensued – is making his skin crawl, but he doesn’t show it.

“What if that hadn’t worked?” Naruto asks, the urgency still apparent in his expression. Kakashi suddenly wonders if his question has anything to do with the genjutsu that he was caught in. How many of his teammates had Naruto lost to blood loss in his dreams? “What should we have done, then?”

“A tourniquet,” Sakura replies immediately. She frowns, though; her eyes flicker down to the bandages around Kakashi’s leg. “Although I’m not entirely sure that that would’ve worked… Correct me if I’m wrong, Kakashi-sensei, but a tourniquet should be applied at least a couple of centimeters above the wound, right? And it can’t be applied on a joint, can it?”

He nods. “That’s right.” It’s a smart observation, though it’s not something that Kakashi wants to spend too much time thinking about. “The cut starts right below my hip. There’s no room for a tourniquet.”

“And even if that was possible, you would risk losing your leg,” Sasuke adds. His expression seems indifferent, but there’s something deeply serious in his eyes. “You can’t leave tourniquets on for longer than a couple of hours. After that, you’re supposed to have reached a medic. We never would’ve made that in time.”

Naruto seems a little paler. The laugh that he gives has a hint of hysteria to it. “Well, I’m glad that that wouldn’t have been an option,” he says. “We prefer you with both of your legs, sensei.”

“Yeah. Can’t disagree with that.” Kakashi doesn’t really know what else to say to that. He’s starting to wish that this conversation was over – his tolerance for being vulnerable is starting to run out. On top of that, he can feel his body getting colder again. It won’t be long before he starts shivering again, and his students would definitely notice with the way they’re staring at him right now.

He braces a hand on his knee, planning to get up and announce that they should keep walking, but Naruto stops him. “Wait,” he says. “Now I still don’t know what we should’ve done if pressure hadn’t been enough to stop the bleeding.”

There’s a visible shift in Sakura’s expression – she looks scared, almost. “There isn’t much else we could’ve done,” she says. “Well, there’s one thing. But I’m not sure I would’ve been brave enough for that.”

Naruto frowns at her. “What do you mean?”

“She’s talking about cauterization,” Sasuke says. “Our last resort would’ve been to burn the wound shut.” There’s a line between his eyebrows. “All I know about it is that it’s risky, and that it would’ve hurt like Hell.”

“We were barely taught anything about cauterization, because it’s dangerous to use in the field,” Sakura affirms quietly. “There’s a serious risk of infection and permanent nerve damage. And it’s pretty much impossible to bear it without passing out from the pain. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to bring myself to hurt Kakashi-sensei that much.”

“The only alternative would be to let him bleed out,” Sasuke replies in a murmur.

A grim silence falls – a silence which Kakashi decides to interrupt. His students are looking a little too pale for his liking.

“Let’s stop focusing on the hypothetical for now,” he says. “It’s important that you know what to do, but you shouldn’t let it stress you out. We’re just going to make sure that we won’t get caught up in a fight again.”

“Well, it’s always good to expect the unexpected,” Sakura says with a shrug. “Weren’t you the one who taught us that, sensei?”

Kakashi shrugs back. “That’s true,” he says. “But if you keep trying to figure out everything that could possibly go wrong, then you’ll go completely insane. Let’s all just hope for the best, yeah? That’s the best thing we can do.”

His students seem comforted, and they get up, preparing to get back on the road. Kakashi distantly wishes his words had the same reassuring effect on himself. His body is overheating and his leg is burning, and it’ll probably only get worse from here on out.

When it comes to getting home, hoping for the best isn’t just the best thing he can do – it’s the only thing he can do.

Chapter Text

The day passes with a slowness that feels like thick jelly. Kakashi’s exhaustion worsens by the minute. His wound feels more painful with every step. Or maybe that’s just his imagination; the fever is making it kind of difficult to think. Walking feels like wading through a river, only the river isn’t filled with water but with molasses.

He allows himself to get lost in his head during the warmest hours of the day – he fixes his gaze on a spot in the distance and lets his mind wander. It’s the only way he can convince himself to keep walking. If he focusses on the here and now too much, he knows he’ll end up lying down and closing his eyes and sleeping until his fever and his pain get better. Which, without medical attention, isn’t going to happen. If he takes all the rest he needs, he’ll risk ending up with sepsis. So if he wants to survive this, traveling is his only course of action.

 As the sun starts to set, Kakashi’s head starts to feel somewhat clearer – but the cooling air worsens his shivering, and it tires out his muscles. By the time Team Seven finally settles down for the night, Kakashi is sore all over.

He sits upright for long enough to eat a little bit of dried fruit, but there isn’t much left of his appetite. He ends up shoving the unfinished package of dried fruit into his pocket. Sakura notices, but she doesn’t say anything. She knows, too, that they should save their food. That’s how Kakashi justifies it to himself as well; it’s all right that he’s not eating much, because they don’t have a lot of food anyway.

He leans his back against a tree and closes his eyes. The darkness behind his eyelids immediately soothes his headache a little. He’d been waiting for a chance to close his eyes for the past three hours.

Finally. He’s sitting down. He doesn’t have to walk anymore, not today. He doesn’t have to be awake anymore. It feels like all of his strength flows away into the ground beneath him. He feels too heavy to move.

His mind is already slipping into sleep, but he notices vaguely that his students are talking next to him. Sluggishly, reluctantly, he opens his eyes again, just in time to catch what Sasuke is saying: “Who’s going to take first watch?”

Kakashi shakes himself awake; he’d almost forgotten. Shiba’s time ran out somewhere in the afternoon, so he can’t take watch duty for another night. That’s probably for the best, actually. Kakashi is almost entirely sure that Shiba could smell the infection on him. The worried glances were starting to get on his nerves.

Naruto raises his hand. “I’ll do it,” he says, but he’s speaking through a yawn, and his eyes are heavy-lidded. “I can take first watch.”

Sakura eyes him skeptically. “No, I’ll do it,” she tells him. “You carried Sasuke around all day. You should sleep.” She turns to Kakashi; “Is that all right with you, sensei?”

Kakashi shrugs, trying to hide his relief underneath indifference. “Sure.” He’s almost embarrassingly glad that he gets to sleep. He should probably be worried about that, but he’s too tired to think about it much right now.

Sasuke offers to take second watch, and Naruto’ll stand watch after that. Kakashi can sleep for a full six hours straight. He needs that. He really needs that.

With that, Team Seven prepares to go to sleep. Sakura stays awake, watching over her teammates.

“Good night, all of you,” she tells them, but Kakashi has already drifted off. He needs all the sleep he can get. Thankfully, he gets to sleep until dawn. That should be plenty of time to rest up.

Now, he just has to hope that nothing will disturb him during the night.

Sasuke can’t sleep.

He’s cold. He’s too cold to fall asleep. It’s part of chakra exhaustion, he knows. He’s been dealing with this shivering since he woke up yesterday. His body doesn’t have enough energy to keep him warm. He knows it’s normal. It’ll pass with some rest.

That’s not all, though. If it were just the cold, it would’ve been fine. Sasuke isn’t a wuss; he can handle some shaking and some shivers, some numbness. During their last mission away from the village, he ended up with a couple dozen of senbon in his body. He almost died. This chakra exhaustion doesn’t feel half as bad as that.

But tonight, the cold in his body is joined by a deep, annoying ache, and it hurts. And, worse than that, he can’t sleep because of it. The only cure for chakra exhaustion is rest, and he can’t do that.

He’s been tossing and turning for probably hours, trying to find a position that’s comfortable enough to let him fall asleep. His over-sensitive nerves make him horrendously aware of every single bump in the ground. He distantly wishes his body would go numb again. At least that’d mean that his body would stop overreacting to the tree root that’s digging into his back.

By the time Sakura puts a hand on his shoulder and informs him that it’s his turn to stand watch, Sasuke still hasn’t fallen asleep. He drags himself upright, slowly; it takes much more effort than it should. It feels like all of his muscles are made of concrete.

He watches Sakura fall asleep, and he briefly wishes he were in her shoes, although he dismisses the thought quickly. He should stop thinking about sleeping. Right now, he has to focus on standing watch. If he let his guard down and missed a threat, Naruto would never let him live it down.

 It’s difficult to pay attention, though. Sure, Sasuke is very much awake, but the soreness in his body keeps distracting him from his surroundings. Even just the simple effort of sitting upright feels like it’s too much. His chest feels tight, probably because the muscles around his ribcage are too tired to do much work, and the more Sasuke thinks about it, the harder it becomes to breathe.

It’s dumb, he tells himself. Most of his discomfort is in his head. This chakra exhaustion doesn’t feel much worse than the flu. He can handle it. Hell, he was strong enough to handle the flu when he was six. Surely he can handle it now.

But there’s something about the darkness and the silence of the night that makes something desperate stir in his gut. Things have changed a lot since he was six, he realizes, and that realization brings with it a stab of pain that has nothing to do with his chakra exhaustion. Back then, he had his family to support him when he felt miserable. Now, he’s alone.

Suddenly, the thought of dealing with this by himself makes his chest feel even tighter. He likes to think that he’s good at getting through stuff all alone – he’s had years of practice, after all – but right now, that sounds like a terrible idea. What if this isn’t what chakra exhaustion is supposed to feel like? He’s never dealt with chakra exhaustion this bad before. He was knocked out for three days. Is he supposed to be in pain, or is there something wrong?

Right now, with exhaustion weighing down on him, he finds himself thinking that all he wants is for someone to be with him and tell him that everything will be okay.

Which is childish. And stupid. And he wants that thought to screw off, because how is he ever going to be strong enough to face Itachi if he can’t even handle some tiredness by himself? How will he ever become a worthy shinobi if he’s too weak to deal with some chakra exhaustion? In the eyes of shinobi law, Sasuke is an adult. He doesn’t need someone to hold his hand every time he feels bad.

But the more he thinks about it, the worse he feels. He’s alone. He feels terrible and he’s alone. His brain has taken the opportunity to bombard him with memories of his family and he’s alone. He can’t breathe and he’s alone.

He doesn’t want to be alone.

It is this train of thought that leads him to raise a heavy arm and tap Kakashi on the shoulder.

Kakashi bolts upright, his eyes snapping wide open in search of a threat, his Sharingan glowing a sharp red. His left hand shoots towards his weapons pouch before he sees Sasuke and stills. It makes sense of him to spring into action at the slightest touch; Sasuke would’ve thought him an idiot if he’d reacted any differently.

“Sorry,” Sasuke mumbles. It’s tiring to speak. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

The glow of Kakashi’s Sharingan illuminates how the tension in his face fades a little. Which is logical; if they were under attack, Sasuke would’ve told him by now. “It’s all right,” Kakashi replies in a murmur, raising a hand to rub at his face. He sounds tired. About just as tired as Sasuke feels. “What’s wrong?”

Sasuke hesitates, suddenly not sure what to say. He can’t remember the last time he asked for help. He’s suddenly not certain if he remembers how to ask for help. And he’s feeling kind of guilty for waking Kakashi up when he so clearly needs his sleep.

Sasuke is about to reply “nothing” when Kakashi nods his head in understanding. “Chakra exhaustion’s got you feeling like crap, huh?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Sasuke replies with a sigh – he’s not sure whether it’s a sigh of exhaustion, or of relief. “I feel like I’ve been thrown through a wall.”

“Sounds about right.” Kakashi reaches into his backpack and hands Sasuke a painkiller. “Take this. You’ll feel better.”

Sasuke takes the painkiller with some water, and he instantly feels a little better. Not necessarily because of the painkiller itself – it’ll take about half an hour before it kicks in – but because Kakashi already knew what to do before Sasuke asked. It’s kind of reassuring.

“So I take it that it’s normal to feel this terrible?” Sasuke asks, lowering his water flask. He doesn’t really need to ask; if something were actually horrendously wrong with Sasuke, Kakashi wouldn’t have reacted so calmly. Still, he likes being sure. “It doesn’t mean that it’s getting worse? Or that there’s something wrong?”

Kakashi shakes his head, a reassuring gesture. “It’s perfectly normal,” he replies. “You see, chakra exhaustion makes it hard to move, so your muscles have to work twice as hard. You couldn’t feel much of that before, because the chakra flow to your nerves was cut off, but it’s starting to restore itself now. It’s uncomfortable, but it means that you’re recovering. You’ll be all right.” He shrugs. “If my own experience is anything to go by, you’ll probably feel a lot better by tomorrow.”

Sasuke realizes that he’s just woken Kakashi up over something that isn’t even worth freaking out about. He’s kind of annoyed about his own vulnerability. He wishes he’d just kept his mouth shut. Now, he just seems like a crybaby.

“Sorry for waking you up,” he says, looking away. “You can go back to sleep if you want. I just wanted to be sure that I’m not dying.”

Kakashi snorts, leaning back against the tree. “No need to apologize,” he says with a shrug. “I mean, imagine if you were dying. It’d be pretty stupid to keep that to yourself, if that was the case.”

Sasuke can’t disagree with that. “Yeah. I guess.” He shrugs back, winces immediately.

Kakashi looks him over. “I could take over guard duty, if you’re still feeling bad,” he offers. “You should probably try to get some sleep.”

Sasuke scoffs. “I’m not that weak.” He’s definitely strong enough to just sit here and look at some damn trees.

Kakashi huffs a laugh. “I should’ve known that that’d be your answer.”

“Besides, don’t act like you don’t need to sleep, either,” Sasuke continues, scoffing again. “You don’t look much better than I do.” Sasuke had kept his worry to himself, but he’d noticed that Kakashi was limping really bad today. He was spacing out a lot, too. Judging by the looks that Naruto and Sakura were giving Kakashi, they were worried about it as well. That fall that Kakashi took during their fight must’ve taken a toll on him.

Kakashi hesitates for a moment; he doesn’t seem to know how to react to that. Eventually, he just leans the back of his head against the treetrunk. “Guess we’ll just have to stand watch together, then.”

Sasuke is too tired to argue, so he accepts the compromise. Besides, he got what he wanted: someone who sits with him and tells him that he’s going to be okay. He can’t really complain.

In silence – because Kakashi seems to understand that Sasuke doesn’t feel like talking – the two of them keep watch.

Kakashi dozes off at some point – Sasuke would normally find that stupid and dangerous, but now, he can’t help but take it as a compliment. Kakashi trusts that Sasuke is strong enough to stand guard, after all. Besides, Kakashi seemed like he needed his sleep. Sasuke would actually find it more stupid and dangerous if he forced himself to stay awake.

So Sasuke stands guard by himself, quietly. The painkiller that he took kicks in at some point, and the soreness of his muscles gradually fades into the background. He still feels kind of chilly, but that’s all right. He can deal with it.

He finishes his shift without further trouble, and he pokes Naruto awake so that he can take over. It’s only when Sasuke lies down again to go to sleep that he realizes that he’s still too awake to fall asleep. It’s almost like his body has accepted that he’s not going to sleep tonight, so it insists on keeping him awake.

It’s annoying. So far, Sasuke has been awake for four hours. Apart from being worried about his chakra exhaustion and briefly talking to Kakashi, he’s had nothing to do at all. And Sasuke doesn’t like wasting time like this. He’s used to spending every waking moment training or learning or preparing for his revenge, but he doesn’t have the energy for that right now. This feeling of doing nothing frustrates him. It frustrates him, but mostly, it bores him.

And so – in a near-desperate attempt to stop doing nothing – Sasuke ends up willingly subjecting himself to standing guard with Naruto.

It’s… not as annoying as he anticipated. Their teammates are asleep, so there’s not much room for that excessively loud conversation style of Naruto’s. The two of them end up talking quietly; Sasuke missed almost three days of their journey, and he hasn’t really had the energy to ask about what happened during that time, so Naruto fills him in on some details. His explanations don’t help Sasuke’s confusion much, though. Apparently there were a lot of things that were “weird” or “annoying” or “kinda scary, but we handled it super well!”, but that’s more or less all the details Sasuke gets from Naruto’s recounting of what happened while Sasuke was out. Sasuke decides to just ask Sakura tomorrow. She may be annoying, but at least she can explain stuff in chronological order.

Still, Naruto’s talking distracts Sasuke from his paralyzing boredom, so he listens and tries to figure out what the Hell he’s talking about. “…and then we noticed that we were being followed, and Sakura told Kakashi-sensei that we were being followed, except she didn’t really tell him because she used ANBU hand signs and that’s so cool…”

It’s in the middle of Naruto’s sentence that Sasuke suddenly hears something. It’s a quiet sound, almost quiet enough to be hidden underneath Naruto’s talking. Sasuke isn’t even sure he heard anything at all.

“Hey,” he interrupts Naruto. “Be quiet for a moment.”

“Aw, but I was just getting to the good stuff…”

“Shh.”

They both listen intently – and then Sasuke hears it again. A soft noise, almost like a whimper. It sounds like either a human or an animal, and whichever it is, it’s got to be bad news.

Naruto scrambles up instantly, his hand reaching for his weapons pouch. His head whips around, startled, searching for whatever made that noise.

Sasuke narrows his eyes at the darkness around him, blindly grabbing a kunai. He can’t see anything moving, which is simultaneously good and bad. On one hand, it means that whatever is hiding in the darkness isn’t getting any closer. On the other hand, it means that Sasuke can’t tell where it’s going to come from once it does get closer, and that’s never a good thing.

Finally, the noise sounds again. It’s soft, kind of pained, and definitely coming from behind Sasuke. Sasuke forces himself up on one knee, turning around and preparing to throw his kunai--

--at his teacher, who is sleeping restlessly behind him.

Sasuke lowers his kunai, his shoulders relaxing with the realization. As he watches, Kakashi stirs again, his head jerking around briefly like there’s something unpleasant stuck to his face and he’s trying to shake it off. Another choked whimper escapes from his throat.

“Ah,” Naruto breathes, also lowering his kunai. “I guess we panicked over nothing, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sasuke agrees, putting his kunai away. He eyes Kakashi; the visible part of his face is tensed up in a grimace, and his hands are balled into fists. Whatever he’s dreaming about, it can’t be pleasant. “Should we wake him up?”

Naruto is watching him, too, a frown on his face. “I don’t know,” he replies, sitting down on the ground. “Nightmares suck, but we probably shouldn’t wake him up. Kakashi-sensei seemed really tired today. I think it’s best to let him sleep.”

Sasuke can’t disagree with that – sleep is sleep, after all, even if that sleep is riddled with bad dreams. If they woke Kakashi up again, he probably wouldn’t get enough rest to function properly tomorrow. Sasuke hums in agreement and sits down, turning his back to Kakashi; if Kakashi is anything like Sasuke, he wouldn’t want an audience during these sorts of moments. Kakashi makes a small noise behind him.

“Poor Kakashi-sensei, though…” Naruto murmurs, leaning back on his hands. “I’ve stood watch a couple of times during this mission, and I’ve never seen Kakashi-sensei sleep as restlessly as this. I wonder what changed.” His face looks troubled. “Maybe it’s just some old dreams. Old memories of crappy stuff that he went through. He told me that he used to have a lot of nightmares when he was younger. He’s probably been through some stuff.”

Sasuke snorts at that. “Who hasn’t?” he muses wrily. “We’ve all been through bad things. Hell, I think that if we survive this mission, we’ll all have nightmares about it for at least the next half year.” He scoffs. “I mean, we all almost died during that fight against the bandits. Kakashi bled halfway to death by the looks of it. Also, apparently Sakura killed three people. I don’t think any of us are going to be the same.”

Naruto laughs, though there’s a cynical edge to the sound. “I get what you mean,” he replies. “I think we’re all going to have a hard time getting back to normal.” He sighs. “It’ll probably be a while before I’ll be able to sleep normally again when all of this is over. That missing-nin messed with my brain pretty bad.”

“What?” Sasuke blinks at him, suddenly confused. Naruto said that so casually, as though he’s entirely expecting Sasuke to understand what he’s talking about, but Sasuke doesn’t. “What do you mean?”

Naruto’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says, “I guess I didn’t mention.” He visibly hesitates – he hesitates for so long that Sasuke half expects him to drop the subject entirely. “Well,” he says eventually, with a lighthearted tone that sounds a little forced, “remember that genjutsu that I was caught in? It… Well, it showed me a hyper-realistic illusion of you guys dying. Dying horribly, and there was nothing I could do to save you. And then it basically trapped me in a day-long nightmare.” He gives a shrug, though the gesture isn’t as indifferent as it should be. “So falling asleep has become pretty stressful.”

And that’s-- crap, that’s something that Sasuke can understand. He remembers the nights after the Uchiha Massacre, remembers the nightmares that he had about the horrors of that night. And most of the images in his nightmares weren’t even his own memories; they were images from the genjutsu that his brother trapped him in.

Sasuke saw his family die, again and again and again, every time he closed his eyes. His own memories mixed with Itachi’s until he wasn’t certain which of his family members he’d actually seen die and which ones he’d seen die in Itachi’s Tsukuyomi. Both reality and illusion were equally horrifying to him.

His nightmares had thankfully become less and less frequent over the years, but he remembers how terrified he’d been of going to sleep at first. And recently, after Team Seven had almost died on their mission to Wave, his nightmares had briefly returned. Except they’d now gotten a new and exciting twist: instead of his family ending up glassy-eyed and covered in their own blood, it was now sometimes his teammates who died in his dreams.

Which – although Sasuke is hesitant to compare himself to Naruto – sounds a lot like what Naruto saw in that genjutsu.

Sasuke shakes his head, trying to clear it of the bloody images in his memory. He doesn’t want to think about that right now, or talk about it, so he doesn’t. Naruto doesn’t need to know what’s going on inside Sasuke’s head. And on top of that, there are big, big differences in their situations. He shouldn’t compare the two. But regardless of those differences, and regardless of whether he says it out loud or not, Sasuke finds himself understanding Naruto a little better.

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke says, after a long silence.

Naruto raises an eyebrow at him. “Uhm,” he says. “It’s not your fault?”

“No, I mean…” Sasuke shakes his head. “I yelled at you for getting out of that fight unscathed. I shouldn’t have done that. You weren’t visibly hurt, but that didn’t mean that you were fine. I’m sorry.”

Naruto gives him a small smile. “Apology accepted. Thanks.” His smile grows wider, growing into a teasing grin. “So you just assumed that I was fine because I looked fine, huh?” he asks. “I think Kakashi-sensei would have something to say about that… Something about looking beyond the obvious… Or looking underneath the underneath…”

“Shut up, you,” Sasuke retorts, but he can’t bring himself to truly feel mad.

Naruto snickers at him, and then he looks over his shoulder. “Speaking of Kakashi-sensei,” he says, “he’s stopped tossing and turning.”

Sasuke looks over his shoulder as well. Naruto is right; Kakashi is sleeping more quietly now, and that grimace has disappeared from his face. He’d been breathing harshly before, but now, his chest rises and falls in a slow and peaceful rhythm. Whatever that nightmare was, it wasn’t a long one.

“Good,” Sasuke says, and the word is immediately followed by a yawn. It surprises him; he’d thought he wasn’t sleepy. Apparently, that annoying wakefulness of his is finally starting to run out.

Naruto gives him an amused look as Sasuke smothers another yawn behind his hand. “I think that’s your cue to go to sleep,” he says. “I mean, it’s got to be around four in the morning already, right? You shouldn’t stay up the whole night. Maybe if you sleep a little, I won’t have to drag your ass around all day tomorrow.”

Sasuke glares at him, and Naruto grins back. Sasuke leans back against a tree, trying to think of a snide comment, but he’s too tired. He finds he doesn’t really feel like arguing.

“Good night,” he simply says, and he closes his eyes, leaving Naruto to finish his shift by himself.

Chapter Text

Drip, drip, drip.

It’s dark. Far too dark. Why is it so dark? It seems like nothing exists, apart from the smell of smoke and that never-ending dripping sound.

Drip, drip, drip. Like clockwork, but slower. It sounds like liquid, lazily falling down one drop at a time, but it’s not water. It’s thicker. More sluggish.

Sakura stands in the middle of this darkness, trapped in the haziness that comes with weird dreams. Something cold presses into the palm of her hand, but she doesn’t know what it is that she’s holding. The thought of trying to look at it doesn’t occur to her – the dream makes her mind feel too blurred. 

She blinks, trying to clear her head. In response, the darkness lifts a little. It’s not darkness, she realizes; it’s smoke. Dense, black smoke.

Drip, drip, drip. Sakura blinks again, and the darkness clears further, fading from black to a dark shade of gray. Maybe if this smoke goes away, she’ll be able to see where that dripping sound is coming from.

She waves her hand around, trying to wave the smoke away. It helps somewhat. In between the whisps of smoke, she can now see some red here and there. She’s standing on something red. The ground underneath her feet is soggy, and she realizes that there’s something seeping into her sandals. It’s liquid, sticky and thick and somewhat warm.

She tries to wave the smoke away again. As the smoke clears, she can smell a hint of something coppery beneath the overwhelming smell of smoke.

Suddenly feeling like something is wrong, Sakura waves her hands around with more urgency, desperate to see what’s going on. The dripping sound continues, feeling almost like mockery; a reminder of how long it’s taking her to get rid of this smoke. Of how long she’s been standing here without knowing what’s happening. Drip, drip, drip.

Finally, the smoke clears enough for her to see through it – and she instantly wishes she’d just stayed in the dark.

She’s standing in a puddle of blood.

There are three dead bodies on the ground. Silent, unmoving, glassy-eyed.

One body has a kunai in his chest. One has a face that’s mutilated beyond recognition, his nose and cheekbones forcefully caved inwards. One body’s throat is cut, leaking blood onto the ground. There’s so much blood.

Sakura feels bile rise in her throat. She recognizes these bodies. They’re the bandits that she fought off while trying to protect her teammates.

They’re the bandits that she killed. She ended three lives with a shuriken, a kunai, and her bare hands. That’s all it took. She didn’t mean for them to die. She just wanted them to back off. It wasn’t her intention to kill them, but she did it anyway.

Drip, drip, drip. In her horror, she’d almost forgotten about that incessant dripping noise.

She finally looks down at her hand, not driven by curiosity as much as a desire to look away from the bodies. She realizes that she’s holding a kunai, covered in a seemingly never-ending amount of blood. The blood drips down sluggishly, creating dark ripples in the puddle of blood. Drip, drip, drip. It never stops dripping.

When she looks up again, vaguely nauseous, the three bodies have changed. Suddenly, Sakura isn’t sure whether the dead bodies on the ground are bandits or her teammates.

She blinks against the smoke, the bodies on the ground slowly coming into focus. Cold panic grips her heart. It’s… It’s them.

It’s Naruto, grabbing at the hilt of a kunai that’s sticking out from between his ribs. It’s Sasuke, his face turned away from her, but Sakura knows that if she looks, she’ll see that there’s not much of his face left. It’s Kakashi, with a huge dark-colored tear in the side of his mask, where a shuriken cut through both the fabric and his carotid artery in one deadly movement.

Sakura staggers on her feet. Did she… Did she do this? The sound of dripping blood answers her question for her. There’s a kunai in her hand, covered in blood. She did this. She did this, but she didn’t mean to.

And that’s exactly what scares her.

Her breathing quickens, and she stumbles backwards, tripping over her own feet. She falls backwards into the puddle of blood, gasping. She doesn’t hit the ground like she expected; the puddle of blood is suddenly a lot deeper than it was before, and it swallows her like quicksand.

Desperately, she reaches out a hand, hoping for anyone to help her. She should know better. There’s nothing here. Just blood and death. Death that she caused. Blood that she spilled.

As the blood begins to choke her, though, a hand grabs her wrist.

Sakura gasps and bolts upright, suddenly entirely disoriented. Instead of the harsh black and red of her dream, she’s now surrounded by gentle shades of dark green, the forest illuminated by the first sunlight of the day. Somehow, that feels wrong. This peaceful atmosphere doesn’t match the darkness in her head.

She blinks forcibly, trying to focus. She becomes aware of a warm hand that’s still grabbing her wrist. When she looks down, she recognizes the hand – the glove, the white and pink battle scars on his forearm, the band-aid on his finger that covers a cut from when he summoned his ninken – as Kakashi’s.

He lets go of her arm, and Sakura looks up to his face. His eyebrows are drawn together slightly in a vaguely worried look. The early morning light plays with the colors of his face, making the shadows under his eyes seem darker than they are, and making his skin look a shade paler than it should. Sakura can’t help but be reminded of the dead body she just saw in her dream.

“Sorry for waking you up,” he says. “You seemed like you were having a nightmare. I figured that waking you up would be better than letting you sleep.”

Sakura just nods her head, looking down. She can’t really bring herself to talk; her head is still working through that dream. Through the blood, the death. The guilt.

Kakashi hovers into her field of vision, his eyebrows drawing together further. “Are you okay?” he asks. “You look a little pale – is your arm bothering you again?”

The pain from her broken arm is the last thing on her mind. Sakura shakes her head silently. She notices distantly that she’s trembling.

The next thing she knows, warm tears are running down her face.

She hears Kakashi sigh, though it seems like a sound made out of sympathy rather than annoyance. “That bad, huh?” he asks softly. Sakura can’t reply; she’s crying too hard to speak, despite her attempts to hold back her tears.

After a moment, Kakashi pushes himself up on his hands with a muffled grunt. He drags himself over to her, so that they’re both leaning against the same tree. Slowly, hesitantly, he wraps one arm around her in a half-hug, careful not to jolt her arm. Sakura sits up on her knees and turns towards him, and buries her face against his shoulder. In her overwhelming upsetness, she doesn’t care about politeness.

Kakashi makes a small, surprised noise, but then he drops the tension in his shoulders and rests a hand on Sakura’s head. Sakura cries into his shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to,” she sobs. She knows that she should explain what she’s talking about, but she’s too distressed to care. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want-- I should’ve been more careful-- I should’ve--” She dissolves into sobs again, pressing her forehead against Kakashi’s shoulder. Tears drip down her chin and into her lap.

Kakashi’s hand is warm on her head, a comforting weight. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he tells her, and Sakura can tell that he’s just guessing at what he’s supposed to say, but she appreciates the gesture anyway. “It’s okay,” he continues. “Just let it all out. You’re safe. You’re safe,” Kakashi repeats in a murmur. His reassurances don’t really help – Sakura isn’t afraid of some external threat. She’s probably the most afraid of herself. Physically being safe doesn’t change that.

That thought just makes her cry even harder, and Kakashi loops his other arm around her, rubbing her back. He doesn’t say anything, and Sakura is thankful for that; there’s nothing he could’ve said that would’ve made her stop crying, anyway.

Eventually, she straightens up and wipes at her stinging eyes. Kakashi loosens his grip on her so that she can sit up. She sniffles and turns away. “Sorry,” she murmurs.

“Don’t apologize,” Kakashi replies. He looks her in the eyes. He looks tired, Sakura realizes distantly, or maybe that’s just because the dim sunlight makes his eyes look more sunken than they are. Underneath that thick layer of tiredness, there’s concern in his gaze. “That must’ve been some nightmare,” he says. “Do you need to talk about it?”

Sakura sniffles again. She’s about to shake her head – now that her head’s a little clearer, she’s really embarrassed about her outburst – but she decides against it. She can’t just wake up, immediately burst into tears, and then never speak of it again. She should at least tell Kakashi what’s going on.

So she takes a deep breath and says: “I dreamt about our fight against the bandits. I… I dreamt about the three people that I killed.” She sucks in a breath. “I didn’t mean to kill them, I just wanted them to leave me alone, I just wanted Naruto and Sasuke to be safe and suddenly there were three bandits lying dead on the ground--”

Her voice is cracking violently, and she’s afraid that she’ll start crying again if she keeps talking, so she just bites her lip and turns away.

Kakashi exhales softly. “So it finally sank in,” he muses, a hint of wry empathy in his voice. “I was wondering when you’d realize how messed up that battle was. That fight was something that no genin should ever have to experience, and you had to go through the whole thing while your teammates were knocked out for most of it. I wondered when your mind would start working through what happened that day.”

He looks down at her. “Some shinobi don’t work through their emotions at all, when they kill someone in a fight,” he continues. “They just train themselves not to feel bad. I think that, in a way, it’s a good thing that you’re feeling guilty. In my experience, shinobi who don’t feel guilt aren’t right in the head.”

Kakashi says that last part with some kind of airiness, probably hoping to lighten the mood, but Sakura just nods somberly and looks down at her lap. Somewhere, in a part of herself that she fears, she wishes that she were one of those machines that don’t feel anything. At least that would help the aching, gnawing guilt that’s eating away at her insides.

Kakashi seems to pick up on her shame, and he sits back against the tree. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I think that you made the right choice. You killed those bandits to protect your teammates. You don’t need to regret that.” Kakashi heaves a solemn sigh, fixing his eyes on some spot in the distance. “Trust me: it’s awful to kill someone that you didn’t mean to kill, but it’s at least as bad to lose someone because you couldn’t protect them. You made the right choice, Sakura.”

Sakura clicks her tongue bitterly. “That doesn’t change the fact that three people are dead because of me.” Her voice is still cracking.

“It could’ve been much worse if you’d made a different choice,” Kakashi counters softly. “You could’ve died. Naruto and Sasuke could’ve died. If you’d left one of the bandits alive, they could’ve come after us and finished us off while we’re weak like this. Would you have preferred that?”

Of course not. Of course she wouldn’t want her teammates to die. She shakes her head.

Kakashi nods at her before looking away again. “You can’t change the past,” he tells her. “Believe me, I’ve tried. All you can do is try to take a different path next time.” He smiles at her. “In fact, you’ve already proven that you can take a different path. Remember that civilian robber? You had a kunai to her throat, but you didn’t kill her.”

“Because you stopped me,” Sakura counters. “I would have killed her, if you hadn’t stopped me. I was ready to kill her.”

“But you didn’t,” Kakashi says gently. “Isn’t that more important?”

Sakura can’t argue against that, so she just bites her lip and looks down. She’s silent, for a moment, trying to wrap her head around it all. It’s all far too big.

“Kakashi-sensei?” she asks, quietly.

“Yes?”

“Do you feel guilt, too?”

Kakashi’s face seems to turn a shade paler, though that may just be Sakura’s imagination. It takes a long while before he replies. Long enough that Sakura starts getting scared that he’s mad at her. When he finally speaks, though, his voice isn’t angry, or even defensive; he just sounds tired. “I do. Every day of my life.” He clears his throat. “Though the moments that I regret the most are the moments when I couldn’t protect someone. Kind of the exact opposite from what you’re feeling.”

Sakura looks down at her lap. “I guess that makes sense,” she says. “I mean, you were in ANBU. Killing is kind of in the job description. I guess it makes sense that you got used to it at some point.” She remembers how efficient Kakashi had been during their fight against the bandits, how dangerous. He wouldn’t have fought like that if he felt regret over every life he took, right?

Kakashi’s gaze briefly turns sharp, but then it fades back to tiredness. “I never got used to it,” he replies. “Not really.” He shrugs, a tense movement. “Sometimes, the choice is simple, though. When someone comes at you with killing intent, you either fight back or you’ll be killed. When someone comes at your teammates, you either fight back or they’ll be killed.” He sighs. “But the killing itself… That doesn’t get easier. So I do understand what you’re going through.”

He looks down at Sakura. “It’s just that my personal regrets have gotten me to a point where I don’t really care what I have to do, as long as it means that I don’t have to lose anyone else. And when it comes to blood on my hands… I guess that that’s a price I’m willing to pay.” He gives her a sad smile. “I would’ve made the exact same choice you did, and I would’ve gladly taken on those bandits myself. It would’ve spared you this sorrow.”

Sakura remembers his orders to retreat, to stay out of the fight and to run far away, and she wonders if she should’ve listened. If she would’ve been less sad afterwards.

But she realizes that fleeing would have meant leaving Kakashi behind – and Naruto and Sasuke, too, because there’s no way that they would’ve fled with her. She would’ve left her team behind. Without her help, they could have very well been killed. And she would’ve had to live with the guilt of leaving her team to die.

She takes a moment to run the scenarios through her head, every different choice that she could’ve made. And the longer she thinks about it, the more she realizes that Kakashi is right. That battle could never have ended without some kind of loss. Her teammates could’ve died if she’d done nothing.

And the blood on her hands… that’s the price she paid for that. And the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that she would make the same choice again. She’d take on any kind of horror, if it means that her teammates are safe.

She nods her head, decisiveness cutting through the breaking of her voice. “I’m willing to do anything for this team, too.”

Kakashi huffs a laugh. “That’s good to hear,” he tells her. “You don’t have to take on that responsibility yet, though. For now, you and Naruto and Sasuke are still under my command. If all goes well, I’ll be responsible for you three until you at least make jounin. And I’ll do my absolute best to make sure that you don’t have to make choices again like the one that you had to make, Sakura. That’s a promise.”

His voice is gentle, and his words are filled with kindness. Sakura can’t believe that there’d been a moment when she’d been afraid of him.

She nods her head, her eyes suddenly stinging again. Kakashi’s cheeks tip upwards into a sympathetic smile, and he holds out an arm. “Come here,” he says, and the next moment, Sakura is sobbing into his flak jacket again.

This time, though, her guilt is joined by gratitude: she’s not alone, she made the right choice, and she can do better next time.

She falls back asleep in the middle of Kakashi’s warm embrace.

Chapter Text

Kakashi exhales slowly, closing his eyes.

Finally, that conversation with Sakura is over. It felt like it was never going to end.

It’s not that he regrets talking to her, or that he wishes he hadn’t said anything about his past. Their talk was necessary. In fact, he’s glad that they had this conversation. If they hadn’t, who knows what kinds of heartache Sakura would’ve been walking around with that Kakashi knew nothing about. She needed some advice about how to deal with her guilt, even if Kakashi’s advice wasn’t great.

So he’s not glad that their conversation is over because he hated the conversation itself – it’s just that it was taking him so much effort to keep himself together. He wasn’t sure if he was going to reach the end of the conversation without passing out.

He rubs at his face, his arm heavy and his hand shaking. Damn it, he’s exhausted. He didn’t get nearly enough sleep, and what little sleep he did get was riddled with nightmares. And as if that isn’t bad enough, he woke up this morning in a bunch of pain and with a fever that’s even higher than it was yesterday. He couldn’t even check on his wound because it hurt too much to even touch his leg, let alone to take the bandages off. He took a painkiller in hopes that it’d help, but his mind is still foggy with pain.

He sighs again and looks down at Sakura, who’s sleeping against his shoulder. She’s sleeping soundly – it reminds him that it was worth it to try and help her, even if talking to her was physically exhausting. Like he told her, he’s willing to do anything to protect this team. That includes protecting Sakura from her guilt. And it also includes pushing through his own emotions, his fever and his pain to do so.

Still, though… Their conversation took its toll on him. He’s relieved that Sakura dozed off. It gives him some time to compose himself.

In response to his relief – or perhaps in response to his adrenaline wearing off, because his brain did not like the fact that he opened up about his feelings and his past – an awful jolt of pain pulls at his wound, making his eyes squeeze shut again. The pain travels from his leg up his side, all the way up to the side of his neck. Kakashi’s stomach reacts to the agony by churning dangerously. Kakashi realizes with a sudden lurch of alarm that he can feel the blood drain from his face. A cold sweat prickles at the back of his neck.

Crap. He’s about to throw up.

Kakashi somehow manages to slide Sakura off his shoulder without waking her up. He shakily lowers himself onto his side and props himself up on his elbow – it’s the only position he can think of that avoids both bending his leg and puking all over himself. Quickly, he pulls down his mask, already panting heavily.

He lies like that for a long time, awkwardly sprawled out on the ground and waiting for his stomach to empty itself. That doesn’t happen, thankfully. He somehow manages to keep the meagre contents of his stomach down.

It’s another while before he can move again without bringing on another wave of dizzying nausea, but eventually, Kakashi hauls himself upright again and leans against the tree, out of breath. His face feels so warm that he briefly considers leaving his mask off, but he pulls the cloth over his face again anyway. He leans his head back against the tree and closes his eyes, his chest still heaving forcefully. At this point, he’s not sure whether it’s his leg that’s hurting or just his whole body.

He can’t keep going like this.

The realization hits him suddenly, and it brings with it a wave of despair that brings him right back to the verge of vomiting. He can’t walk like this. The day hasn’t even begun and he’s already exhausted. He just almost threw up from the pain, and he still can’t say for certain that he’s in the clear; even though he’s just sitting still, his wound still burns on the inside, like there’s acid trying to eat its way through his leg. He doesn’t want to imagine how much worse he would feel if he tried to stand up right now.

He can’t do this. He physically cannot keep going.

Kakashi can feel his shoulders sagging with defeat. He’s finally reached his limit.

He sits there for a while, one hand lying limply across his stomach and the other balled into a fist in the grass, as he tries to accept his fate. Damn it. Damn it, it’s finally come to this. There’s a last resort that he can use, but he’d really, really hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it.

With a resigned sigh, he reaches into his weapons pouch and takes out a blister pack of soldier pills.

He takes out a pill from the packaging and studies it numbly, as if that will make things better. He knows the risks and the drawbacks. Soldier pills are meant to keep you fighting for three full days and nights – they bring up your chakra level and give you more energy, and they’re potent painkillers as well – but after those seventy-two hours, you’re practically incapacitated. When the effects of the soldier pill wear off, you’d better be prepared to be off your feet for the next couple of days.

Every single time Kakashi has taken a soldier pill, he ended up in the hospital afterwards, recovering from severe chakra exhaustion – severe enough that he didn’t even have the strength to stay awake for long. He doesn’t have the luxury of giving into that kind of exhaustion, not while he’s stuck in the middle of the woods with his genin team.

That’s why, up until now, he hadn’t even let himself consider using soldier pills. Up until now, pushing through his pain seemed like the better option. Better than taking a soldier pill and feeling good for three days and then inevitably collapsing. His students would have to take care of him if that happened, which is deeply pathetic, and also dangerous. Kakashi doesn’t want to put that responsibility on them.

But now… He can’t push through his pain anymore, or his fever, or his exhaustion. He’s already practically useless. And suddenly, it seems like a really appealing idea to postpone the moment that his body stops cooperating.

If he can travel for another three days, they’ll be that much closer to Konoha. At this point, they could get pretty close to Konoha in three days’ time. Likely even close enough that Kakashi could send one of his ninken to get help.

And once he’s sent for help, Team Seven won’t have to travel anymore; they’ll have to wait for help to arrive. Once he’s sent for help, it doesn’t matter if Kakashi collapses or not. It’ll still be humiliating to have to rely on his students, and he’ll probably scare the shit out of them, but that’s something that he’ll just have to deal with.

Kakashi sighs and rolls the round pill between his fingers. It’s hard to convince himself that this is a good idea. Kakashi doesn’t use soldier pills except as an absolute last resort; its drawbacks really aren’t pretty. He may very well make Team Seven’s problems even worse in the long run. Has it really come to this?

Almost like a response to his question, his wound gives off another sickening wave of pain. It’s overwhelming enough that Kakashi can’t breathe until it passes, his back arching and his hands helplessly curling into fists. By the time the pain finally ebbs away a little, he’s struggling not to pass out, the edges of his vision darkening. A drop of sweat slides down the side of his face; he feels too weak to even reach up and wipe it away.

It has. It has come to this.

He decides to only take half of the soldier pill right now. It’ll keep him going for the next day and a half, maybe a bit longer if he takes it easy; soldier pills are made for combat, but Kakashi doesn’t need to fight. All he needs to do is walk.

He’ll just see how he’s feeling once the effects of the half soldier pill wear off. He could always take the other half as well, but maybe, by some stroke of absolute miracle, he doesn’t need to. If he can avoid taking a full soldier pill, he’ll avoid completely draining his chakra. Half of a soldier pill will make him tired as Hell when it wears off, but he won’t be entirely incapacitated. Well, if his fever doesn’t incapacitate him first, that is.

At any rate, this is going to get messy. But it’s a better option than sitting here and not being able to move and helplessly waiting for his fever and his infection to consume him.

Kakashi pulls down his mask and bites the soldier pill in two. He lets the piece lie on his tongue for a moment – he can still change his mind now – but then he decides and swallows.

He puts his mask back on, fiddles the other half of the soldier pill somewhat securely back into the blister pack, and puts the blister pack back into his weapons pouch. He sits back and closes his eyes, waiting for the pill to kick in.

It takes less than a minute; soldier pills are meant to be used during battle, after all, so it’s kind of crucial that they kick in fast. During that minute, Kakashi can feel the aching in his muscles steadily disappear. He can feel his chakra level rise, can feel his tiredness decrease – his body no longer feels so heavy and his head no longer feels so foggy.

The nauseating pain in his leg fades to a much, much more manageable level. Where at first the pain was so bad that he could feel it in his entire body, it now barely feels worse than a bruise. The ringing in his ears remains, but Kakashi hadn’t expected that to go away, anyway. After all, the soldier pill can’t reverse or heal the damage that’s been done to his body. It just hides what it can.

And it hides the majority of Kakashi’s problems well. He feels normal again, and it’s such a damn relief. He hadn’t fully realized how awful he’d been feeling until all of that awfulness was suddenly gone.

He doesn’t allow himself to give into that happiness, though. This isn’t a solution, he reminds himself. It’s just a rug that he can sweep the problem under. The soldier pill may have brought back his chakra and his energy, but it didn’t stop the infection in his leg, and it didn’t stop the fever – he can’t feel it anymore, but it’s very much still there. And once the soldier pill wears off, his tiredness and his chakra exhaustion will return, worse than before.

He has a day and a half before he starts feeling terrible again. He should make the most of that time.

He turns around – he can’t help but be amazed at the fact that moving suddenly doesn’t hurt anymore – and carefully shakes Sakura’s shoulder. It hasn’t been very long since she fell asleep; Kakashi briefly feels bad about waking her up, even though he shouldn’t feel bad. His watch shift is over, and the sun is up. It’s time for Team Seven to get going. Besides, Sakura is always so punctual. Kakashi has a feeling that she wouldn’t like it if he let her sleep in. She’d probably just feel more guilty for holding back the team’s progress at getting home.

Sakura sits up and rubs at her eyes – they’re still a little red-rimmed. She blinks blearily. “I didn’t mean to fall back asleep,” she murmurs. “Should’ve realized it was almost time to leave.”

Kakashi can’t hold back a smile. “Nothing wrong with a few extra minutes of rest,” he says with a shrug. “I hope you’re not too tired; you didn’t get as much sleep as you could have.”

“It’ll be all right,” she replies. “Walking isn’t that tiring.”

Kakashi nods. “Good, then.” He’s already irrationally impatient at the notion of walking all day today, now that he’s heard Sakura say it out loud – he feels like he’s up for running, but he knows that he really shouldn’t do that. He may not be able to feel much of his wound, but he knows that he’ll still make it worse if he pushes himself. He needs to be patient. “Just let us know if you need a break, okay?”

He doesn’t mention their conversation about Sakura’s guilt, at least for now. She can always talk to him if she needs to, but it seems unfair to remind her of her sadness again. It’s probably good if she just lets the traveling distract her today.

Now that Kakashi thinks about it, she’s not the only one in this team who could use some distraction from their problems. Sasuke’s chakra exhaustion is bound to make him uncomfortable today, and Naruto seems mostly okay, but knowing him, the constant walking probably has him bored out of his mind. And Kakashi himself will probably get bored as well, now that walking no longer requires his full focus. For the first time, Kakashi realizes how frustrating and mind-numbingly boring these travels must’ve been for his students. There’s got to be something he can do about that.

He comes up with an idea as he wakes the boys up; honestly, it’s weird just being able to think properly about something else than problems and pain. He tries to remember what the last thing was that he taught his students. It was probably tree-climbing, though that feels like a century ago now. He can use that as a starting point.

The idea comes from a need for distraction, both for himself and for his students. It’s probably not the best motivation for a teacher to have.

Still, now that he finally has the energy for it again, Kakashi decides that he’s going to do his job. Today, his students are going to learn some stuff.

They take to the road; his students eat breakfast as they walk. Kakashi skips breakfast, because he doesn’t dare trust his stomach again yet, so he uses that time to come up with a lesson plan.

Kakashi leads the group – he’d been walking behind his students for the past days, almost too slow to keep up with them, but he’s no longer slow. He still has to be careful not to put too much weight on his leg, but his limp is nowhere as bad as it was before. Walking no longer hurts, and it’s… great, actually. It gives Kakashi room to focus on other things. Like teaching his genin.

His plan of distracting his students through the power of teaching works, at least for a little while. Kakashi ends up doing nothing but talking all morning; he would’ve preferred to have his students learn by actually doing stuff, but since Sasuke can’t use his chakra, Sakura can’t make hand signs, and Naruto is the only one in the entire team who is up for combat training, Kakashi’s options are limited.

It’s a bit awkward at first, lecturing his students. Kakashi has never really been the kind of person to talk for unnecessarily long times, especially not during this mission – he’s mostly been quiet except during their breaks, because it was tiring to focus on walking and speaking at the same time. He catches his students exchanging bewildered looks behind his back during the first ten minutes. Kakashi notes that they’re not used to him acting like an actual teacher, which is… kind of eye-opening.

But the surprised looks pass, and Kakashi gets used to talking, and his mostly-improvised lesson plan somehow has his students genuinely interested. He sort of just figures out what subjects make Naruto and Sakura ask the most questions, and then he works from there – Sasuke seems tired, so Kakashi doesn’t really expect him to actively participate, though his eyes light up briefly when Kakashi mentions Fire ninjutsu. Kakashi works with that.

By the time lunchtime rolls around, Kakashi is already talking about elemental jutsu, which is pretty complicated material for genin this young. It’s unsurprising that this is the subject that his students are most interested in; especially Naruto seems to gravitate naturally towards the flashiest types of jutsu. Kakashi can absolutely see him having a knack for some sort of elemental jutsu in the future. If Naruto is anything like Minato, then Wind will likely be his natural element – and Sasuke seems to like Fire ninjutsu. Together, they could be very dangerous. Kakashi should think of some training exercises that they could do when they get back home, and he should also probably think of somewhere spacious where they could do those exercises, because two chaotic genin plus large fireballs is a recipe for disaster.

With those things in mind, Kakashi tells his genin everything he knows about elemental jutsu, and he answers their questions, and for a good while, Team Seven is distracted from their tiredness and their aches and their boredom.

It’s somewhere in the afternoon that his students finally start getting distracted from what Kakashi is saying. It’s around this time that Sasuke starts getting too tired to walk, and it takes Naruto a full ten minutes to convince him to let Naruto carry him again. This argument lasts exactly long enough to break Naruto’s focus – by the time Kakashi continues his lecture, Naruto has forcibly wrestled Sasuke onto the back of a Shadow Clone and he clearly isn’t paying attention anymore.

Well, Kakashi doesn’t blame him. Six hours is a highly impressive time to hold Naruto’s attention, and Kakashi considers it a personal victory.

On top of the distraction that is Sasuke’s stubbornness, Team Seven has been walking non-stop since the morning, and it’s clearly starting to get to the kids. Normally, they’d take a short break to eat lunch, but they ate as they walked today because Kakashi wants to walk as far as possible before the soldier pill wears off. As a result, Sakura is dragging her feet, clearly tired. Naruto doesn’t seem visibly tired, but he does seem restless, and he’s hunched forwards with his hands in the pockets of his jacket; it’s nearly unnoticeable, but he’s holding his hands against his stomach.

It occurs to Kakashi that their meagre rations may not be enough for them. The realization brings with it a pang of sympathy; they really haven’t been eating that much, have they?

Kakashi himself is used to tuning out the sensation of hunger during missions, and his pain and his fever have cut down on his appetite a lot anyway – but his students don’t have that luxury. They aren’t used to functioning a whole day on nothing but a handful of peanuts, a few bites of a ration bar and a quarter of a portion of canned food. Even if they haven’t been excessively active, and even if the kids have been holding up pretty well so far, the fact that there’s so little in their stomachs is clearly not very comfortable for them.

Logically speaking, Team Seven probably has enough food to survive until the end of this mission. They’ll have to travel for about three more days, maybe four, and after that it would probably take about two more days for help to arrive. They can probably survive six days with the food they have, but they would have to be careful and their portions would need to be very small.

If Kakashi were leading an ANBU team, he would be okay with that. But his students are genin. Small, young, tired genin who aren’t trained at spending their energy effectively. Genin who are used to devouring three bowls of ramen in one sitting. And genin who are Kakashi’s responsibility, and he’ll be damned if he lets them go hungry on his watch.

They need more food, plain and simple. The question is how. There aren’t any villages nearby, so seeking one out to buy food would delay their journey by multiple days – which is time that they can’t spare, considering the limited amount of days that Kakashi can still walk. There’s got to be another way--

“Hey, Kakashi-sensei?”

A hand taps Kakashi’s arm, and Kakashi turns around to see Naruto pointing at some vine that’s growing around a tree trunk. Kakashi raises an eyebrow at him. “What is it, Naruto?”

Naruto jabs his finger closer to the plant. “Isn’t that plant edible?” he asks. “I mean, I remembered something about a plant with white flowers that you could eat, so I thought…”

His voice trails off, and he looks at Kakashi expectantly. Ignoring his anxiety about standing still – Kakashi’s instincts urge him to keep walking – Kakashi decides to humor Naruto and steps closer to the plant.

He closes his Sharingan – it’s pretty hard to identify a plant when every plant looks red to him – and inspects the vine. It’s got round leaves, each about a finger-length in diameter, and there are small white flowers growing in between the leaves. Kakashi usually relies on his strong sense of smell to identify whether plants are edible or poisonous, so his knowledge on plants isn’t actually that extensive, but he recognizes this one: it’s not edible.

Naruto is still looking at him with that badly-hidden hope in his eyes. Kakashi prepares himself for disappointment as he opens his mouth to tell him, but Sakura beats him to it.

“That’s round-leaved bittersweet, you moron,” she tells Naruto, scowling at him. “It’s poisonous. It was a question on a test in our second year of the Academy, don’t you remember?”

“The Academy was ages ago,” Naruto grumbles. “I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning.”

“It was three bites of a ration bar,” his Shadow Clone reminds him. Sasuke snorts audibly from atop the clone’s back.

Sakura sighs at Naruto, but she doesn’t truly seem annoyed. “Well, this species of bittersweet does sort of look like wild garlic, if you really squint,” she allows. “They’ve both got white flowers. I guess I could see how you got them mixed up.”

Naruto looks down and kicks at some dust on the path. “Damn it,” he mutters. “I thought I’d found something that could help us. I mean, I know we don’t have a lot of food left, so I wanted to try and do something about that. I just want to do something--” His face lights up suddenly with an idea, and his eyes snap back up to Kakashi. “Hey, sensei? Can I go and look for stuff that we could eat?”

It’s… not actually a bad idea. They need the extra food. On top of that, Naruto is probably frustrated with the slow pace of their travels; letting him run around for a bit would let him burn off some of that restlessness. As long as he doesn’t leave Kakashi’s sight, it should be fine.

Yesterday, Kakashi would have shut the plan down, but that was back when he didn’t have enough energy to keep an eye on Naruto. Today, he finds himself nodding.

“All right,” he tells Naruto, who grins back at him. “Just don’t go too far away, okay? And nobody’s eating anything until we’re absolutely certain that it’s edible.”

Naruto nods at him eagerly, and then he takes off.

For the rest of the day, Naruto runs around the forest while the rest of Team Seven follows at a slower pace. Kakashi makes sure that Naruto’s chakra signature is always within his sight; whenever he wanders too far, Kakashi quickly shouts for him to come back. It’s the first time in days that it doesn’t cost Kakashi much effort to raise his voice.

At first, Naruto comes back with anything and everything. Mostly just anything that’s colorful and shiny; berries, some flowers, and a plant with dark red leaves. He insists that the berries he brings back are edible, and he insists that he’s eaten them before and that he was fine – but when Sakura inspects the plant, she concludes that none of the berries are edible at all. Kakashi double-checks, and Sakura is right. They’re poisonous, in fact.

He silently theorizes that Naruto may be able to eat poisonous plants because he heals so quickly. Which may explain the fact that the kid never bothered to remember the difference between edible and poisonous berries. Kakashi isn’t brave enough to voice his theory, though – Naruto would immediately take that as an invitation to stick literal poison in his mouth. Kakashi doesn’t want to imagine what would happen if he’s wrong.

At any rate, Kakashi manages to convince Naruto that the berries in question would make them all very sick and would possibly kill them, and Naruto leaves the subject alone after some grumbling. Sakura gives Naruto a list of plants to look for; plants that won’t kill any normal person.

Thankfully, Naruto learns quickly. Pretty soon, Naruto is coming back with armfuls of dandelions and daisies and white clover. Sakura confirms that they’re all edible, and Naruto beams.

Kakashi is honestly surprised at how much food Naruto manages to find. Foraging for plants is a skill that Kakashi hasn’t used since his genin days; during the war and on ANBU missions, foraging was considered too much effort for too small an amount of calories. And up until this point, it was too much effort for this team as well – no one on this team was in any shape to go looking for something to eat. Running around the forest looking for plants would just end up burning more energy than it’s worth.

But here is this kid who has recovered from his chakra exhaustion and who suddenly has too much energy. And Naruto is surprisingly good at finding his way across the forest floor as well. He comes back a couple of times with thorns in his fingers or scratching himself because he walked into a nettle by accident, but he heals quickly and he doesn’t give up on searching for food.

They finally stops walking when the sun begins to set. By then, pretty much every bit of spare space in their backpacks is filled with edible plants. There are daisies sticking out of Naruto’s pockets, and he’s carrying an entire shrub of wild strawberries in his hands – Sakura informed him that it was hard to identify a plant by the fruit alone, so Naruto decided to just take the whole plant.

The members of Team Seven plop themselves down on the ground and eat their fill. Kakashi isn’t hungry, since the soldier pill squashes down every physical feeling that could potentially hold him back during a fight – but he knows that his body still needs food, so he ends up eating some of the plants as well. The leaves and the flowers don’t necessarily taste like much, but Kakashi swears that seeing Naruto grin proudly about his accomplishments makes the plants taste better.

“You know, I know even more ways of finding food in the woods!” Naruto explains through a mouthful of dandelion leaves. “I can show you guys how to make traps. We could leave some out while we sleep – maybe we’ll have caught something by morning!”

Naruto didn’t know much about foraging, so Kakashi assumed that he wouldn’t know much about other survival skills either, but he’s proved wrong: Naruto knows an impressive amount about traps. He makes a couple of traps with some twigs and a piece of rope that he carries in his backpack. He also manages to find a rabbit trail not far from where Team Seven has set up camp – he sets the traps there, though he notes that rabbits are most active around sunset and sunrise, so the chance that they’ll catch something during the night is small.

Sakura watches him work with her mouth slightly fallen open. “Where did you even learn this?” she asks him. “We didn’t learn this much about traps at the Academy.”

Naruto grins a mischievous grin. “Pranks, mostly,” he replies. “Though there’s a big difference between traps for pranks and traps for hunting. Traps for pranks are fun, and they’re not really supposed to be dangerous. Traps for hunting can mess you up if you’re not careful.” He laughs nervously. “I learned that the hard way… Do you guys remember that time I set up a trap in the drawer of Iruka-sensei’s desk? Somewhere during Iruka-sensei’s first year as a teacher?”

Sasuke snorts. “Yeah. He reached for a new box of chalk in the middle of class and the trap snapped shut around his hand. That was the loudest I’ve ever heard anyone yell.”

“He broke two fingers,” Sakura says. “And the box of chalk had completely turned into dust. I’d be yelling, too.”

“Yeah, well, so,” Naruto says, still somewhat sheepishly, “that was one of those hunting traps.” He nods towards the rabbit traps. “And Iruka-sensei really wasn’t happy about the whole thing – his fingers were healed up quickly, but I still kinda felt bad about it. So I became more careful after that.”

Kakashi listens silently, wide-eyed. He silently thanks his lucky stars for the fact that Naruto is the empathic kid that he is. He’s very happy that the worst prank that Naruto has tried to pull on him was dropping a chalkboard eraser on his head. It could’ve been so much worse. If Naruto had developed a taste for dangerous pranks, Kakashi’s life would’ve been so much harder.

“So, uhm, guys,” Kakashi says with a slightly nervous chuckle, “make sure not to set off the traps, okay? We don’t need any more injuries on this mission. Watch your step if you’re going to walk around after dark.”

“Well, you should probably watch your step everywhere,” Naruto adds soberly. “There could be traps anywhere, and they can be pretty big if the hunter is hunting, like, deer or something. And then there’s the kinds of traps that target humans – there’s a bunch of those in the woods around home. Those are pretty dangerous.” He points proudly at himself. “No worries, though; I know enough about traps to know how to notice one, even if they’re hidden. So I’ll warn you if we come across any dangerous traps.”

A realization is building in the back of Kakashi’s mind as Naruto speaks – it’s something that he’d never considered before. It just strikes him as odd that Naruto knows the woods around Konoha so well, and that he’s so good at setting traps. Clearly, he’s been practicing with his traps for years, and he knows how to use them in the field. If he were just using them for his pranks, he wouldn’t know so much about it. And for a child that young, learning this much about traps screams necessity.

Naruto couldn’t have been hunting for food, could he? He couldn’t have been that poor, could he? The Hokage took care of him. Surely Naruto would have had enough money to afford food, right? Surely he wouldn’t have needed to go into the forest and risk getting caught in traps so that he could scrape together enough food to live, right?

Kakashi shakes himself and files that thought away for later. This isn’t the time nor place to ask Naruto about that. Instead, he clears his throat and smiles at his students. “Let’s settle down for the night,” he says. “We walked a lot today, and I bet you’re all tired. You should get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

His students give him some surprised looks, but they don’t protest. As Sakura lies down, she looks up at Kakashi, frowning at him.

“Are you sure you’re not tired, sensei?” she asks. “I could take first watch again.”

Kakashi shakes his head – he’s definitely not tired. Soldier pills are meant to keep you fighting for three days and three nights straight. He is not going to be able to sleep tonight. “I’m wide awake,” he replies. “Go to sleep, Sakura. I’ll wake you up if I notice that you’re having a nightmare again, okay?”

“Okay.” She nods, the frown disappearing from her face. She sits back against a tree and closes her eyes. “You were feeling a lot better today, weren’t you, Kakashi-sensei?” she asks, her eyes still closed. “I could tell.”

“Yeah,” Kakashi replies, a little taken aback by the question. He’d thought that he’d hidden his crippling tiredness pretty well yesterday, but maybe his students are more observant than he gives them credit for. “You’re right.”

Sakura nods. “Well, good,” she replies, sounding sleepy. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

“Yeah,” Kakashi says again, and he hopes that it’s not overly obvious that he’s hiding something from her. “I hope so, too.”

He can hope all he wants, but the effects of the soldier pill will still wear off tomorrow. He’s feeling good today, but he’ll start feeling worse again soon.

He’s not ready to burden his students with that information yet, though. So he stands guard as they drift off to sleep, while his own mind stays wide awake.

He ponders over his restless thoughts all night.

Chapter Text

Kakashi stands guard all night, the soldier pill keeping him awake. He doesn’t wake up his students for their watch shifts; it’s no use, anyway. Kakashi won’t be able to sleep, no matter how hard he tries. If he’s going to be awake all night anyway, he might as well give his students a chance to rest.

Undisturbed, his students sleep the whole night through. Kakashi can’t do much else than sit and wait and feel restless. They could be using this time to travel, but his students need rest. He feels a bit guilty about how much that frustrates him.

When the sun – finally – begins to rise, Kakashi takes care of his wound in the early sunlight. Which isn’t easy; the bandages are sticking to the wound, and Kakashi has to carefully peel them off. The bandage catches on the stitches a couple of times, and Kakashi may not feel much of it, but he can’t help but wince regardless. He knows that if he hadn’t taken the soldier pill, this would have hurt like Hell.

Most of his outer thigh is swollen and red at this point. The cut itself is raw and moist and angry-looking. It smells unpleasant – Kakashi does not want to make the comparison, but it smells like something rotten. Any signs that his wound was healing have by now completely disappeared.

There’s nothing he can do about it, apart from trying to keep it from getting worse. He cleans the wound as well as he can and wraps it in clean bandages. Deep inside his leg, he can feel his heartbeat throb vaguely, like a threatening reminder: once the effects of the soldier pill wear off, Kakashi is going to be in a world of pain.

Twelve more hours. He’s got about twelve more hours before the half soldier pill starts wearing off.

He wakes up his students once he’s put away the first-aid kit. His genin are groggy and confused as to why he didn’t wake them up for their guard shifts – Kakashi just tells them that he couldn’t sleep, so he figured he should make himself useful. It’s not a lie.

As soon as Kakashi’s students have stopped yelling at Kakashi, Naruto checks on the traps that he set last night. They’re all empty; Kakashi hadn’t expected otherwise. Wildlife doesn’t come near people easily. Kakashi also suspects that the glow of his Sharingan may have scared the animals off. Oops. Well, it’s probably for the best that they didn’t catch anything, now that Kakashi thinks about it. They would have to make a fire to cook the animal, and that takes time – time that is much better spent traveling.

Naruto sets off the traps with a stick, disabling them; leaving them activated will just lead to some poor animal dying a meaningless death, or some unsuspecting passersby could step on a trap by accident and break a toe. It’s best to keep that from happening.

After that, Team Seven soon starts walking. As they walk, they eat the rest of the plants that Naruto found yesterday, though the leaves have gone a bit limp during the warm night. This quickly prompts Naruto to go and find fresher plants, and he ends up running through the forest again all morning.

Despite the genin’s grumpiness about the fact that Kakashi let them sleep all night, they all seem well-rested. Naruto is even more full of energy than he was yesterday, and Sakura seems to have a bit more color in her face now that she’s had a proper night’s sleep.

Most noticeable, though, is the change in Sasuke’s demeanor. He doesn’t seem nearly as tired as he was yesterday. He slept through the night, and Kakashi is pretty sure that he slept for a bit while Naruto’s clone was carrying him yesterday as well, and the resting has clearly done him good. He’s still a little pale and shaky, but he’s standing up straight and he’s not dragging his feet anymore. It seems that Sasuke recovers from chakra exhaustion much faster than Kakashi does. If he sleeps well again tonight, he should be completely recovered by tomorrow morning.

As the sun rises in the sky, the temperature rises and rises. Even in the shade under the trees, it’s warm. Kakashi fears at first that he’s feeling his fever, that the soldier pill has worn off before it should – but then he sees Naruto tie his jacket around his waist, grumbling about the heat. Sakura is fanning her face with her hand. Sasuke is the only one who doesn’t seem bothered by the heat; his body temperature is probably still low from the chakra exhaustion, so he’s probably comfortably cool.

Kakashi makes sure to refill everyone’s flasks with a Water ninjutsu, now that he still has enough chakra to do that. He rolls up the sleeves of his jounin sweater and unties the bandages that tie his pants to his ankles, trying to cool off. He considers taking off his flak jacket, but he decides against it. He can handle this heat.

Around noon, Naruto starts to get a little too red in the face, so Kakashi stops him from running around. During the warmest hours of the day, Kakashi continues where their talk about elemental ninjutsu had left off yesterday. He tries to subtly add in some lessons about first aid as well; the later it gets, the more worried Kakashi becomes about what’s going to happen once the soldier pill wears off. If he passes out, he wants at least to make sure that his students won’t freak out.

Around seven in the evening, Naruto declares that it’s not too warm to run anymore, and he sets out to find Team Seven dinner. His statement surprises Kakashi; he doesn’t feel like it’s cooled down at all. Kakashi logically knows that the warmest hours of the day should be over, but he’s only been getting warmer.

It seems that the soldier pill has worn off.

Thankfully, the effects wear off gradually instead of all at once. The soldier pill stops concealing Kakashi’s pain, and the energy that he got from the pill starts to fade away, but it happens slowly. Kakashi thinks that it’s wearing off so slowly because he took it easy. He remembers a couple of times when he took half a soldier pill during a difficult and drawn-out battle, and he would sometimes just faint on the spot when the effects wore off. He’s grateful that that doesn’t happen this time.

Still, it’s uncomfortable to become aware of his physical problems again. His fever is the first thing that he feels again, and it brings with it some shakiness and a headache. His tiredness follows; he can feel his chakra level dropping, and the pressure in his skull evolves into spikes of pain. It becomes harder and harder with every step to move his right leg. He’s sure that he’s limping worse, and he’s sure that his students notice.

And then, the pain comes back, slowly but unrelentingly. It starts as a vague throbbing under his skin, and then it turns into a persistent throbbing, until every step sends a familiar jolt of pain up Kakashi’s leg. Mercifully, the pain doesn’t turn into that full-blown agony from yesterday morning again, not yet at least. It seems that the soldier pill hasn’t fully worn off yet, then.

Despite that small blessing, Kakashi feels that it’s time to stop walking for the day. He’s uncomfortably warm and tired, and his headache is making him a little dizzy, and it’s probably for the best if he sits down soon.

When Naruto comes back with his arms filled with plants, Kakashi halts and smiles at him. “Good job, Naruto,” he tells him, though he finds to his regret that the words don’t sound very sincere underneath the thick layer of tiredness in his voice. “Let’s settle down for the day and eat.”

“We’re going to stop walking?” Naruto asks, sounding surprised. “Already?”

Kakashi nods, hoping that Naruto won’t ask him why they’re stopping so much earlier than yesterday. “Yeah.”

“Oh- Well, if that’s the case,” Naruto replies, gesturing with his chin towards something up ahead. “I saw a creek not far from here. I was going to ask if we could stop there and cool off. Maybe go for a swim, or something.”

“Fine by me,” Kakashi replies with a shrug. He tries to be nonchalant, but the notion of cold water sounds absolutely amazing right now. He feels like he’s cooking in his own skin. On top of that, this team could honestly really use a bath. Judging by the looks on Sakura’s and Sasuke’s faces, they share his enthousiasm. “Lead the way.”

Naruto brings them to a narrow stream, slightly North of their original path. The water is fairly shallow, and it streams fast. It looks clean; definitely clean enough to swim in.

Naruto spreads his jacket on the ground and carefully lays the plants down on it. That carefulness was apparently all the patience he could muster, because he next takes off his backpack, weapons pouch, T-shirt and shoes at an astonishing speed and splashes loudly into the creek. The water is about waist-high for him. He sits down on the ground with a content sigh, letting the water run over his shoulders.

As Naruto yells for Sasuke and Sakura to join him, Kakashi slowly lowers himself down at the edge of the creek a bit ahead. He’s been noticing that the hearing in his left ear is a little better than his right ear – the explosive tag went off next to his right ear, because he turned away from the explosion to protect his Sharingan – so he keeps his left side to his students so that he can hear them. Out of habit, he scans their surroundings once more before he lets himself relax.

Kakashi shrugs out of his backpack and gratefully takes off his shoes. Shinobi’s sandals are made to be comfortable, but after wearing them non-stop for an entire week, Kakashi is glad that he can take them off for a moment.

He’s not going to go for a swim – soaking a wound in water is generally a really bad idea, especially if you want that wound to stay closed – but he does roll up his pant legs and dangle his feet in the water. The water comes up to his knees, and it’s blissfully cold. Kakashi hadn’t truly realized how warm he’d been feeling up until now.

Kakashi takes off his flak jacket, and then his jounin sweater. Now that he’s here, he should really wash the sweat and the blood from his clothes. The possibility of being clean has suddenly opened his eyes to how gross his clothes feel.

He’s sitting downstream from where Naruto is swimming, so Kakashi can safely wash his clothes without drenching Naruto in dirt and old blood. Kakashi washes his sweater, and he also cleans the spare sweater that he was still carrying in his backpack. Both sweaters are covered in dried blood; the water briefly turns a brownish red before the stream washes the blood away. Kakashi knew that his clothes were dirty, but he hadn’t realized how dirty. It just hadn’t really been a priority to care. He feels better now that they’re clean again, though.

He also cleans his gloves – those, too, are stiff with blood from back when he had to apply pressure to his wound to make it stop bleeding. His flak jacket is somehow the least dirty, though the front has some specks of enemies’ blood on it and the back is entirely coated in dirt. Well, Kakashi has been sleeping on the ground all this time. He scrubs the flak jacket clean and lays it down next to him to dry.

His pants are really dirty as well, but Kakashi isn’t sure how to take them off without putting himself through unspeakable amounts of pain, so he doesn’t do that. Instead, he just splashes some water onto the fabric and washes off the blood as well as he can. His right pant leg is absolutely covered in dried blood; Kakashi had almost forgotten that his uniform is supposed to be a much lighter shade of blue. He’d almost forgotten that the bandages around his ankles were never supposed to be red.

Once his clothes are somewhat clean and are drying on the ground around him, Kakashi takes off his headband and scoops some water into his hair. He bends forwards, letting the now-dirty water drip back into the creek. The water returns with a muddy gray color; there was still soot in his hair from Sasuke’s Fireball jutsu and from the explosive tag that went off next to his head. He washes the soot from his hair and watches a cloud of gray water float down the river.

The water is a cold weight on top of his head. It helps cool down the growing heat inside Kakashi’s skull. He breathes a sigh of relief.

He looks down and studies the tank top that he was wearing underneath his uniform. He’d like to clean that as well, but there’s a problem with that idea: his mask is attached to the tank top, so if he wants to clean the tank top, he needs to take off his mask as well. Which is risky, since his students are right next to him.

He briefly considers leaving it be, but the fabric is sticking to his upper body with sweat and he’s been wearing the same mask for a week without washing it. The more he thinks about it, the grosser he feels.

He looks over his shoulder, trying to see if his students are paying attention to him. Naruto is splashing Sasuke with handfuls of water, and Sakura is sitting at the edge of the creek with her feet in the water, laughing alongside them. As Kakashi watches, Sasuke angrily takes off his shoes and weapons pouch and gets into the water to wrestle Naruto. They seem distracted enough.

Quickly, Kakashi turns his back to them and takes off his tank top and his mask. His face is left uncomfortably bare. He has to be quick.

As he bends down to wash the tank top, he can suddenly hear Naruto’s voice behind him. “Whoa, Kakashi-sensei! That’s a lot of scars!”

Kakashi stills immediately, his hands tightening around the tank top. Right. The scars on his back. His students hadn’t seem them yet. For some reason, he’d forgotten about that; it’s weird to realize that he’s bared his soul to them, but not his skin.

He hadn’t meant for them to see. His skin is a map of all the times he’s screwed up – of all the times he lost a fight or couldn’t protect a loved one. He’d been so careful about keeping his past from his students, because his past is not their burden to bear, but now he’s let down his guard.

And of course, of course Kakashi has just shown them the very worst of his scars. His back is an absolute mess of rough, raised scars – each of them serious injuries that he got during fights against dangerous opponents, during moments when he let his guard down and saw too late that an attack from behind was coming.

The scars on his back are remnants of life-threatening stab wounds. Of attacks so powerful that they cut straight through his flak jacket and into his skin. Of explosive tags stuck to his back that he managed to peel off just a moment too late. He remembers being thrown into a tree exceptionally hard one time – and when he regained consciousness, half of his ANBU squad was dead and there was a broken rib sticking out from his back. These are not stories that he wants to tell his students.

It appears that the fever is making Kakashi’s mind spiral more easily than before. It takes Kakashi so much effort to get his thoughts back under control that he almost forgets that his students are still behind him, and that he should say something. By the time he does remember that he should reply, Sakura has already started yelling at Naruto.

“Don’t just shout stuff like that at people!” she tells him. “It’s probably a sensitive topic!”

“Ah, no, crap, I didn’t…” Naruto stammers in response. “Sorry, Kakashi-sensei, I didn’t mean to be rude--”

“It’s fine,” Kakashi forces himself to reply, his back still turned to his students. “You weren’t being rude. And you’re right; I do have a lot of scars. You were just stating a fact, that’s all.” He realizes belatedly that his tone is clipped and cold – a reflex to try and prevent his students from asking any questions. He’d actually decided not to use that tone with his students again.

But he’s already said what he said, and the mood changes in response. His students had been playing around and laughing earlier, but they get quiet now. Kakashi kind of feels responsible for that; he could’ve definitely reacted better than he did. Less coldly, at least. He practically snapped at them, while it’s not their fault that his mind took the reminder of his scars as a cue to throw bad memories at him.

Trying to think of a way to remedy the good atmosphere from before, he finishes washing his tank top and puts it back on, pulling his mask over his face. His skin is still far too warm, so he appreciates the fact that the fabric is still dripping wet. He closes his eyes briefly; he’s tired, and frustrated with himself. He’d been getting along with his students so well for the past couple of days, yet his first reflex at being slightly uncomfortable was still to snap at them and close himself off. He just hopes that they won’t take his curt reply as a sign that he hates them now, or something.

He’s about to turn around and apologize when Naruto’s voice sounds again from behind him, this time in a triumphant tone. “Hey, sensei! We caught something!”

Puzzled, Kakashi turns around – to Naruto and Sasuke physically wrestling a large fish. “We haven’t caught anything yet, you dumbass,” Sasuke replies, his voice strained, but he hasn’t even finished his sentence before Naruto straightens up and lifts the fish against his chest, out of the water.

“Caught it,” he says, grinning proudly. “Time for dinner!”

Sakura laughs a surprised laugh, shaking her head. Kakashi can’t hold back a smile, either. Leave it to his students to salvage the good mood where Kakashi couldn’t.

“Well, what are we waiting for, then?” Kakashi asks, getting up. “Let’s get a fire going.”

Sasuke starts a fire, and Kakashi prepares the fish – Kakashi had planned on showing his students how to do that, but he zones out and suddenly the fish is already cooking over the fire. It seems that the fever is starting to mess with his head again.

Despite his fever and his steadily increasing pain, Kakashi does still feel hungry, so he allows himself to eat as much as he needs. It likely won’t be long before the pain starts making him nauseous again, and once that happens, it’ll probably be a while before he can bring himself to eat properly again. He should eat now that he still can.

Team Seven feasts on the fish and on the plants that Naruto gathered. The food is good and the atmosphere is generally content, though the genin are uncharacteristically quiet. They’re probably still startled because Kakashi snapped at them. He wants to apologize to them for that, but he’s not sure how to do that without inviting any questions. Maybe it’s for the best to just leave the subject of his scars alone.

“Hey, Kakashi-sensei?”

…or maybe not. “What is it, Naruto?”

“I, uhm… I wanted to say sorry again, for yelling at you that you have a lot of scars. I was just surprised about it.” Naruto glances at Kakashi’s face, checking his reaction. “Sorry. It was rude. I just thought they’re super cool. That’s all.”

That catches Kakashi off guard. Before he can stop himself, he replies with more bitterness than he should show towards his students: “Cool? None of my scars are cool.” He shakes his head. “They’re just remnants of times when I got hurt – nothing more than that. They’re nothing but reminders of times when I wasn’t as strong as I should’ve been, and when either I or other people suffered because of it.”

Naruto wrinkles his nose at him in confusion. “Really? That’s the way you think about it?” he asks. “It looks to me like you just survived a lot of stuff. That’s pretty cool to me. I mean, if you hadn’t survived all of that stuff, you wouldn’t have become our sensei. That’d be boring.”

Kakashi has to admit that he has a point. He has been appreciating the fact that he’s alive more than usually, lately – if he’d kicked the bucket at any time during his shinobi career, he wouldn’t have met his genin, after all. It sounds corny, but it’s true. Maybe he should try to view his scars as reminders of times when he survived, instead of times when something awful happened to him.

Changing that mindset won’t be easy, though. He can’t imagine looking at his face in the mirror and not thinking of Obito. He can’t imagine looking at the large diagonal scar on his chest and not being reminded of the fact that he almost lost Team Seven that day on the bridge in Wave. The scar that he’s going to have on his leg after this will probably evoke a similar feeling of despair. No matter how hard he tries, he’ll still look at the lines on his skin and be reminded of his failures and almost-failures.

Naruto takes Kakashi’s silence as an opportunity to study him, his eyebrows drawn together in an earnest expression. “They can’t all be reminders of crappy times, right?” he asks. “Your scars, I mean. Don’t try to tell me that every scar makes you sad when you look at it.”

Sakura nudges him. “Just leave it alone, Naruto,” she whispers at him. “You know that that’s a far too personal question.”

Naruto ignores her. “For example,” he says, quickly taking off his headband and brushing his hair out of his face. There’s a white, horizontal scar along his forehead. “This is from when I fell off the swing when I was a kid, and when I tried to get up, the swing hit me square in the face.” He grins. “It was bleeding like crazy, and it wasn’t funny at the time, but now it makes me laugh. Or,” he continues, holding out his hand to show a pink line on his palm, “this is from our mission to Wave. I mean, I got it when I almost got poisoned – but it reminds me of our first big mission as a team. Which was pretty awesome, even if it was scary.” He looks up at Kakashi. “Don’t you have scars like that? Ones that connect to good memories?”

“What is the point you’re trying to make?” Sasuke asks him, frowning. “Why do you care about this?”

“Because it’s important,” Naruto explodes. “Kakashi-sensei basically just told us that every scar on his body makes him sad. Every single one. Don’t you think that that sucks for him? Don’t you think that I should try to make him feel better?” He looks at Kakashi, his expression determined. “Maybe I’m being rude again – I don’t know,” he tells him. “All I’m trying to say is that it can’t all be terrible. There’s got to be something happy, too, and I’m trying to get you to see that, sensei.”

There’s a plethora of cynical replies that Kakashi could give to that, but he swallows them all down and forces himself to consider what Naruto is saying. When he’s given it some thought, he clears his throat and points at the one scar he can think of that doesn’t actively make him sad, the only one he can think of. It’s a thin, pink line across the back of his left hand, normally hidden by his gloves, but since his gloves are drying in the grass, the scar is now in full view.

“I got this when a friend of mine challenged me to a juggling match,” Kakashi says, and Naruto’s face lights up. “We were juggling with kunai. It went about as well as you can imagine.”

“Who won?” Naruto asks.

Kakashi finds himself grinning. “I don’t remember clearly. There was saké involved. A little too much saké, I think.” He shrugs. “I’ll have to ask Gai when we get back home.”

“Wait,” Sakura says, her eyebrows rising. “Do you mean Gai-sensei?”

“Yeah. He’s been challenging me to all kinds of weird matches for as long as I can remember.” Kakashi points at a patch of rough skin on his shoulder; “Now that I think about it, that’s not the only scar that I got during one of those challenges… This one I got during a very intense game of rock-paper-scissors.”

And before he knows it, he’s pointing out scars and telling stories. He hadn’t thought that that’d be possible. He hadn’t thought that he had any scars at all that were lighthearted enough to talk about. But he does have some. A lot, actually.

He can think of five scars at first; five scars on his body that don’t connect to some kind of trauma. Five stories that don’t end with death or bloodshed or catastrophic failure. Then he can think of eight stories, then a dozen, then twenty.

It’s… weird, and also kind of comforting. Kakashi had always thought that his skin is nothing but a map of all the fights he’s lost, of all the times he wasn’t able to protect his loved ones – but as it turns out, there are also plenty of scars that connect to lighthearted stories. That connect to fun times with friends or weird stuff that he did as a kid. He hadn’t realized that. Maybe Naruto is right: it’s not all terrible. Plenty of it still is, but not everything, and that’s an oddly reassuring thought.

So he talks. About one of his very first D-rank missions, when a cat almost clawed his ear off. About the second time Gai challenged him to a juggling match, except they were now juggling with shuriken and they were possibly even more drunk. About that one ANBU sparring session which started with Tenzou trying out an experimental Woodstyle jutsu and which ended with at least a hundred splinters and a trip to the hospital.

About the time he woke up to Pakkun trying to gnaw his foot off, when Kakashi was little and Pakkun was still a rowdy pup. About all the times he accidentally electrocuted himself when the chidori was still a work in progress, creating vaguely lightning-shaped burns on his hands and wrists. About the time Kakashi got hurt and got fed up with being stuck in the hospital and tried to sneak out, except he was still very loopy from the pain meds and ended up falling through a window.

His students listen, and they’re genuinely interested, even though Sakura and Sasuke initially try to pretend they’re not. During some stories, it takes minutes before Naruto stops laughing. Kakashi imitates how Tenzou tried to apologize to him after their training accident – Tenzou felt so bad about it that he tried to convince Kakashi to kick him out of ANBU, his voice wobbling and cracking, while Kakashi laughed at him from a hospital bed – and it has Naruto doubled over on the ground, crying with laughter. Kakashi finds himself laughing as well, which is not something that he’d expected to do when this conversation started.

He doesn’t tell his students about the battle scars, about the near-death experiences. He trusts that they’re smart enough to figure out that he doesn’t want to talk about that. He might tell them when they’re older – if he told them now, he would just be showing off the most awful and dangerous aspects of shinobi life, and it’d just make them scared for their own future. Besides, Kakashi first has to figure out how to talk about his past without making himself feel like shit, anyway.

When his genin-friendly stories start to run out and the conversation stops distracting him from his fever and his growing pain, his students start sharing stories of their own. Times when they tried, and failed, to make tea or cup ramen and scalded their hands with hot water. Times when they reached into their weapons pouch blindly and grabbed the wrong end of a kunai. Sasuke is reluctant to join in – probably a combination of his pride and the fact that he dislikes talking about his past as much as Kakashi does – but he listens, and despite his occasional snide comments, he seems genuinely interested in what his teammates have to say. It’s almost unnoticeable, but he seems more social than he was before this mission.

The four of them talk until the sun sets; by then, Kakashi has started having trouble keeping his eyes open. The exhaustion from the soldier pill has definitely started setting in. He doesn’t protest when Naruto offers to take first watch.

As Kakashi lies down, leg stretched out on the ground, he can’t help but feel… lighter than before. His past normally feels like a dark and intimidating shadow, lurking just beneath the surface of his mind at all times, ready to strike as soon as Kakashi gives it any sort of attention – but today, it doesn’t feel like that. Today, he was reminded that his past isn’t entirely dark at all, no matter how badly his pessimistic mind wants to believe that it is. In between the awful stuff, there were plenty of good moments. Kakashi just forgot.

His students are a good influence on him.

Kakashi closes his eyes, his mouth quirking into a smile that’s hidden underneath his mask. It seems that his exhaustion and his fever are making him sentimental. He’d better go to sleep before he starts to turn into an optimist, of all things.

With that thought, he drifts off. He knows that he’ll likely feel horrible again by the time he wakes up, but for some reason, his mind doesn’t want to worry about that. For now, he just lets himself feel calm.

Sleep claims him suddenly and silently.

Chapter Text

Kakashi sleeps deeply, completely knocked out for the whole night. He normally gets nightmares whenever he has a fever, but his dreams are mercifully calm this time. It’s nice. Now that the soldier pill has worn off, his body needs all the rest it can get.

When he wakes up in the morning, he wakes up to absolute commotion.

He opens his eyes to his students shouting into his face, all three of them wide-eyed and seemingly kind of startled. Kakashi sits up and groggily rubs at his face. “What’s--?”

“Kakashi-sensei!” That’s Naruto’s voice, breaking right through his tinnitus and promptly reawakening Kakashi’s splitting headache. “You’re awake! Can you hear us? Quick, sensei, what’s your name and age?”

All three of them stare at Kakashi expectantly, so he clears his throat and replies: “Uhm. Hatake Kakashi. Twenty-six.” He’s rarely been this confused. He wonders briefly if this is just some weird fever-induced nightmare, because he is not understanding what’s happening.

Naruto scrunches his nose in thought and turns to his teammates. “Guys, can anyone confirm that? The age thing, I mean?”

“Why did you ask a question you don’t know the answer to?” Sasuke asks.

“Well, because Iruka-sensei said that that’s what you’re supposed to ask in these kinds of situations!”

Kakashi holds up a hand, which is thankfully effective at shutting his students up. He gives them a bleary look. “Calm down,” he tells them, and he can’t keep the exasperation from his voice. “What’s going on, exactly?” He just can’t pinpoint the cause of their shouting; if there’s any danger around, Kakashi can’t spot it. Plus, he would hope that his students’ attention would be on the danger instead of on him, if that were the case.

Sadly, his students take his question as an invitation to shout some more, which doesn’t really help Kakashi’s understanding of the situation.

“We thought you were never going to wake up--”

“--you weren’t reacting--”

“--scared the Hell out of us--”

“Hey.” Kakashi interrupts his students again, because they’re starting to sound a little panicked, and their yelling is hurting his head. “One at a time, please,” he says. “Slowly, now. What happened?”

His students share an anxious look, like they’re all waiting for one another to speak. Eventually, Sakura clears her throat. “You weren’t waking up, Kakashi-sensei,” she says, carefully. “We’ve been trying to wake you up for almost an hour.”

Ah. Not good.

“My guard shift was over, so I tried to wake you up,” Sakura continues, looking up at him. Kakashi notices that her eyes are vaguely puffy and red-rimmed. “But you just… weren’t responding. At all. So I panicked and woke Naruto and Sasuke up.”

Kakashi bites his lip underneath his mask. He doesn’t know what to say. Judging by his students’ faces, he really startled them. Both Sakura and Naruto look like they cried, and Sasuke is ghostly pale. Kakashi realizes numbly that he can tell that he’s pale because the sun is already up. He really slept for far too long. And according to his students, nothing was waking him up. If they’d been in danger at any moment, they would’ve had to deal with it by themselves.

Naruto gives him another concerned look, his eyebrows drawn together. “Do you know why you wouldn’t wake up, sensei?” he asks. “Is it because you stayed awake all night yesterday?”

That’s not the reason, though Kakashi has to admit that it’s a good guess. The real reason is simpler than that: the exhaustion from the soldier pill just knocked him out. Kakashi recognizes that this is a good moment to admit that, but he’s too tired to have that conversation right now. His students will have questions, and he won’t be able to answer them right now. His head feels too foggy, his thoughts too sluggish.

“I don’t know,” he simply says. “I wish I knew. I’m sorry for scaring you like that.”

As though it’s trying to convince Kakashi to tell his students the truth, his leg chooses that moment to give off a blinding wave of pain. The pain had been bearable before, partially hidden underneath the layer of confusion and lingering grogginess in his head, but it’s come back in full force, now.

Kakashi cringes involuntarily, a choked sound escaping from his throat. His students start forward, but Kakashi holds up a hand to stop them, his chest heaving. He wants to tell his students that it’s fine, that they don’t need to worry, but he can’t gather the breath to do so. Considering that he’s currently struggling not to pass out from the pain, they probably wouldn’t believe him, anyway.

“What is it?” Sasuke asks. The ringing in Kakashi’s ears almost drowns out Sasuke’s gruff tone; when Kakashi looks up at him, he’s frowning. “Your leg?”

Kakashi nods, his eyes involuntarily squeezing shut. “I’ll be fine,” he replies. His words are hurried; he can barely draw enough air into his lungs to speak, his chest tight with pain. “Just give me a minute.”

In the end, it takes far longer than a minute before the pain finally starts ebbing away. It doesn’t help that Kakashi’s students are staring at him the whole time, their eyes filled with worry.

Kakashi rubs a shaky hand across his face, hoping that that’ll make him stop feeling so dizzy. His hair sticks to his forehead with sweat; he realizes numbly that he’s not wearing his headband. It takes him multiple seconds to remember that he took it off yesterday to wash it, and that it’s lying on the grass beside him. It takes him longer to realize that all of that is completely irrelevant to the situation. Damn it, that fever is making it hard to focus.

“Are you feeling better?” Naruto interrupts his thoughts. He’s rocking from side to side where he’s sitting, a motion that’s clearly either impatient or anxious. Considering the situation, probably anxious.

“Yeah.” It’s not a lie; Kakashi is feeling better than just now, even though it still feels like there’s a large shard of red-hot metal sticking from his upper leg. “Sorry for startling you.” He gives a laugh that sounds a little breathless. “That suddenly hurt a lot. Ow.”

He’d hoped to lighten the mood a bit, but the concern on his students’ faces only seems to increase. Sakura studies him, her eyebrows pinched together. “You seemed like you were doing much better, the past few days,” she says. “Did something happen that made it start hurting again?”

This would, once again, be a very good moment for Kakashi to admit that his wound has gotten infected, but after that random bout of pain just now, his desire to have that conversation has decreased to absolutely zero.

So instead, he forces his tired mind to come up with an excuse. “Ah, yeah, I set my foot down wrong yesterday and I guess it must’ve jolted the wound a bit. I’ll probably just walk it off today, so don’t worry about it.”

Apparently that lie is convincing, at least to some degree, because his students don’t ask any more questions. “Maybe that’s why you were sleeping so deeply,” Naruto muses. “That’s what my body did as well, right? To kind of shut down when you’re hurt so that it’s easier to heal?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Kakashi replies; he’s mostly just relieved that he managed to lie convincingly while his head feels like it’s filled with nothing but pressure. “So, anyway,” he says, eager to move on from the topic, “do you three need to get some more sleep? I was supposed to stand watch for two hours, so you can go back to sleep if you want.” That would give him a good opportunity to change his bandages.

Naruto huffs a nervous laugh. “I don’t think I can go back to sleep after that scare from just now,” he says. “We really thought you weren’t going to wake up again, sensei.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep, either,” Sakura agrees. “I think it’s better if we just get going.” Sasuke nods.

“All right, then,” Kakashi replies. “Let’s eat, and then we’ll leave.”

Apparently, Naruto set some traps nearby after Kakashi fell asleep last night, and one of the traps caught a rabbit somewhere during the night. As Sasuke builds another fire like the one he’d built yesterday and Sakura and Naruto prepare the rabbit, Kakashi slips away to check on his wound.

Walking is absolute agony; it only takes him a few steps to limp out of his students’ sight, but the pain is already bad enough to make him feel sick to his stomach. As he lowers himself down behind some shrubs, he finds himself doubting that he’ll even make it back to them.

He leans forward, out of breath. His hand hovers next to his mask, ready to pull it down in case he’s going to throw up. His nausea eventually fades somewhat, though, and he turns his attention to the bandages around his leg.

His right leg is just a blur of pain at this point; the feeling that he’s on fire is no longer constrained to his wound. When Kakashi experimentally touches the bandages with his fingertips, he can feel heat radiating through them. Even though he only touches his leg lightly, a jolt of pain follows, and he can feel it all the way into the bottom of his foot. The edges of his vision go dark in response.

His thoughts flicker to the other half of the soldier pill that he’s carrying in his weapons pouch. He could take it right now and postpone the pain. To Kakashi’s exhausted, pain-riddled mind, that sounds like a great idea.

He reaches into his weapons pouch, but instead of the blister pack of soldier pills, Kakashi takes out the map that he carries with him. He stares at it blearily for a moment, his sluggish brain briefly struggling to find Team Seven’s current location on the map.

He finds their location eventually: next to a bend in a narrow creek, a little to the North of where they’re supposed to be. They’re not as close to Konoha as Kakashi thought. Despite their best efforts, they didn’t make as much progress in the past two days as Kakashi had hoped.

They’re farther away from Konoha than he’d thought. Kakashi should feel panicked about that, but he can’t. He’s too tired.

He stuffs the map back into his weapons pouch and forces himself to think. If he’s reading the map correctly and they really are farther away from Konoha than he thought, then they can’t be more than a few hours off course. If he takes the half soldier pill now, he’ll collapse too early – he won’t get close enough to Konoha to send one of his ninken to get help.

If he travels for a couple of hours first and then takes the half soldier pill, though, it should be fine. He should be able to get within a day’s travel to Konoha before the pill wears off. Which means that if he can just push through his pain for just a few more hours, Team Seven will be all right.

He breathes out slowly. Just a few more hours. It sounds so simple, and Kakashi hates the fact that it’s not. It’s a few more hours of walking, while five steps had already brought him to the verge of puking from the pain. This is going to be a nightmare.

He clenches his jaws. There’s no other way, not really. The only alternative is to ask his students for help, but he can’t imagine how they could even help him in the first place. And even if they did figure out a way to help him, it wouldn’t be worth it, anyway – because he’d have to admit that he’s too weak to stand, and that’d make them scared and it’d make them pity him and it’d make them lose faith in the fact that he can get them home, and that’s all too much for him right now. They probably wouldn’t appreciate the fact that he lied to them about his health, either.

So his only option is to power through his pain. Which is a thing that Kakashi is very good at, even if it sucks. He can do this. He’s done it before, and he survived each time. There are multiple scars on his body that are proof of that.

With renewed optimism and an unwillingness to keep thinking about his problems, Kakashi takes a painkiller and starts untying the bandages around his leg. His optimism quickly falters when he realizes how much it hurts to unwrap the bandages. Even just the faint brushing of the bandages against his skin – even skin that isn’t anywhere near the wound – sends out spikes of pain that shoot all the way up his side. Kakashi digs the heel of his good foot into the ground and forces himself to push through the pain, though he has to stop a couple of times to catch his breath.

The first part of the bandages unwraps relatively easily. The skin on his upper leg is unreasonably sensitive, and it hurts to take the pressure off his wound, but Kakashi quickly gets used to the constant flare of pain.

And then the bandages catch on his stitches.

Kakashi drops the end of the bandage with a gasp. His vision goes at once entirely black; he can’t move, he can’t breathe. He has to physically force his chest to expand, his lungs to fill with air.

He was prepared for the bandages to be stuck to the wound, or for them to pull on the stitches like they did just now, but he hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.

The darkness in his vision, the white-hot pain, ebbs away a little, but not entirely. Kakashi swallows down his rising nausea and bends over his leg again. It’s tempting to just leave his leg be, to wrap these bandages around it again and call it a day, but Kakashi knows that he should change his bandages. Leaving these gross ones on will just make the infection worse faster.

He sinks his teeth into the inside of his cheek, stopping himself from making any sound. Then, he picks up the bandage again and slowly pulls it back a bit, carefully coaxing it loose from the stitches. Kakashi bites into his cheek harder, takes a breath, and continues to unwrap the bandages. The foul liquid that leaks from his wound has made the bandages sticky, and they’re stubbornly stuck to the cut. Getting them loose is difficult and painful work.

One benefit of having a fever is that Kakashi sometimes zones out completely. When he’s finished taking the bandages off his leg and he’s looking down at his uncovered wound, he has no recollection of the minutes that preceded it. The inside of his cheek is bleeding, though, and he’s badly out of breath. The wound feels like it’s on fire, the skin around it red and irritated from the friction of the bandage.

The cut looks about the same as it did yesterday, which is only a small consolation; it looked terrible yesterday. Well, at least it hasn’t gotten worse. It definitely feels worse, though.

Kakashi takes a breath and eyes the alcohol wipes in the first-aid kit. He decides not to clean his wound again. His wound already hurts awfully, and putting alcohol on it may be enough to finally make him either faint or throw up. And Kakashi would like to prevent both of those things. He’s not sure whether cleaning the wound ever even helped in the first place.

He wraps his thigh in bandages again; it’s a task that demands a carefulness that his trembling hands can’t really deliver. With every bit of pressure that the bandages apply to his leg, his wound screams out. Kakashi once again bites into his cheek to keep himself from screaming out as well. His mouth tastes of copper and nausea.

Kakashi doesn’t give himself the luxury of waiting for the throbbing in his thigh to disappear; his students are probably waiting for him. If he stays away for too long, they’ll ask questions that he doesn’t want to answer. Or doesn’t know how to answer, really, without sounding like either a liar or an insane person.

He puts the first-aid kit away; it takes him an alarmingly long time to zip his backpack closed, because his trembling fingers won’t grab the zipper correctly. After that, he forces himself upright, a little too quickly. He has to lean his shoulder and the side of his head against a tree in order to avoid passing out.

Once his vision is no longer as dark and the dizziness has ebbed away somewhat, he starts the long journey back to his students: a long journey consisting of five steps, five steps of pure struggle. The bandages around his leg look deceptively neat – the clean white of the bandages shows no evidence of the agony that writhes underneath. Kakashi tries his best to make sure that the rest of him shows equally little evidence of pain. He relaxes his brow and clenches his jaws instead, hiding the expression underneath his mask. It doesn’t feel like he’s very successful at it, though.

His students have already started eating when he returns to them. Naruto looks at him over his shoulder, looking a bit guilty. “Sorry, we started without you,” he says. He gestures to a part of the cooked rabbit that’s still speared onto a stick. “We left you a quarter of it, though.”

Kakashi’s stomach twists uncomfortably at the sight of the food. He turns away in a way that he hopes is subtle. “You three can have my share,” he replies. “I’m not really hungry.”

That clearly strikes his students as weird, but the three of them are thankfully too distracted by the notion of extra food. “You sure?” Naruto asks, eyeing the left-over part of the rabbit with clear hunger.

“Yeah. It’d be stupid to let it go to waste.” He turns his back to them. “Eat. We’ll leave afterwards.”

Kakashi makes his way over to his clothes, which are still spread out on the grass – another five steps of struggle, made worse by the fact that he knows his students are watching him. The effort of walking and of fighting back nausea have left him uncomfortably warm, so he decides to leave his flak jacket and jounin sweater off, instead stuffing them into his backpack. His face also feels far too hot, so he ties his headband around his neck instead of around his head.

Everything takes him a horrendously long time, especially compared to how much faster he was with the energy that the soldier pill gave him. By the time he’s packed his clothes, his students have already finished eating and have put out the fire. They refill their water flasks in the creek, and then they leave.

Even after barely two minutes of walking, it’s already obvious that Kakashi is lagging behind. His students throw him worried glances over their shoulders, and Kakashi can’t summon the breath to reassure them. He decides to ignore them. He has to focus on himself. He has to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, without falling over and without passing out from the pain.

Just a few more hours. Just a few more hours, and then he can take the other half of the soldier pill and be done with this pain for a while.

Just a few more hours.

Kakashi-sensei is being weird. And Naruto isn’t sure whether it’s a good kind of weird.

He’d thought that it was a good kind of weird; Kakashi was being weird for the past two days, too, but it still seemed like a good thing back then. For the past two days, he suddenly seemed like he was doing much better than before. Naruto had noticed that he was tired and a little out of it and having nightmares, so he’d thought that Kakashi was taking a turn for the worse – but then, he suddenly seemed more energetic and more awake than he’d been in days. If it weren’t for the fact that he was still limping a little, Naruto would’ve thought that Kakashi had suddenly stopped being injured. He was talking, he was teaching. It was weird, but not a bad kind of weird.

But now, this morning, he’s being weird again. And Naruto is pretty certain that it is bad this time.

Despite Kakashi’s reassurances, it’s obvious that something is wrong.

Naruto may be bad at paying attention, but he’s super observant when it comes to people. Whatever energy Kakashi had had for the past two days, it’s definitely gone now. He’s much slower than yesterday, and it seems like walking is taking him a lot of effort; he’s limping worse and audibly panting. He also didn’t eat in the morning, which isn’t as weird but it’s worrying all the same, because he seemed to be plenty hungry for the past two days. He’s also really pale, except for the bit of blotchy red that peeks out above his mask – it’s probably because of the warm weather or because of the exertion, but if Naruto didn’t know better, he would’ve thought that Kakashi had caught the flu or something.

The worst thing is the fact that he wouldn’t wake up, this morning. Well, maybe it’s not the worst thing, but it’s definitely the thing that freaks Naruto out the most.

He cried this morning, after they’d tried and failed to wake Kakashi up for half an hour. All he could think about was that Kakashi was gone, that he was gone again, just like the dozens of times that Naruto had to watch him die during the genjutsu that he was trapped in. Except this time, Naruto wouldn’t wake up and get another chance. This time, he was terrified that Kakashi would be dead for real.

Naruto shakes himself, trying to shake off that worry. That genjutsu has been over for days, and it’s still making him irrationally anxious; every time something happens to his teammates, he’s immediately terrified that they’re going to die, while he knows that they’re not going to die. Kakashi is strong. Whatever is happening, it’s probably not nearly as bad as Naruto fears. Kakashi said that he twisted his foot yesterday, and that it made his wound hurt more. Chances are that he’ll just walk it off today, just like he said, and then he’ll be okay again.

Naruto’s gut yells at him that there’s more going on, though. Naruto tries to ignore that feeling. His gut also tells him that his teammates will drop dead at any moment, just like they did in the genjutsu, and that hasn’t happened either. His gut is probably just wrong.

He looks over his shoulder to check on Kakashi, just to reassure himself that Kakashi’s still standing. He’s immediately glad that he looked back; if he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have noticed the way Kakashi is stumbling, barely keeping his footing. He keeps walking, with an almost trance-like determination, but it’s clear that it’s taking him far, far too much effort.

Naruto shares a look with Sasuke and Sakura, who are walking next to him. “Maybe we should stop for a bit,” he says. He talks quietly, though he’s not certain why; maybe it’s because he knows that Kakashi would protest if he heard him. “Kakashi-sensei isn’t looking so good.”

“We’ve only been walking for half an hour,” Sasuke says. The words sound like he’s protesting against the idea, but he stands still regardless.

The three of them wait for Kakashi to catch up; when that happens, Kakashi leans against a tree, visibly out of breath. His face had been red before, but it has now become an alarming shade of gray. “Why are we… stopping?” he asks in between gasps. “Is something wrong?”

“We’re just… Well…” Naruto scrambles for words that are somewhat tactful. He lets out a frustrated noise when the right words don’t present themselves. “We just thought that we should…”

Sasuke cuts him off and says exactly the words that Naruto didn’t want to use: “You look terrible. We figured that if we don’t take a break now, you’ll fall over.”

“You should probably sit down for a bit, sensei,” Sakura adds, quietly. “You’re really pale.”

Kakashi huffs a laugh that sounds more like a wheeze and waves his hand; the gesture is too shaky to look even the slightest bit nonchalant. “I can keep going,” he says. “My leg’s a bit sore from that misstep that I made yesterday, but it doesn’t feel nearly as bad as it looks. If I keep pushing through it, it’ll probably get better on its own.”

“Do you really believe that?” Sasuke asks, his voice almost a snap.

Kakashi gives a trembly attempt at a shrug. “Yeah.” He pushes himself forwards, away from the tree. His chest is still heaving. “So let’s keep going; we’re not going to get any closer to home if we keep standing here. Just don’t worry about me anymore, I’ll be fine--”

Before Kakashi has even taken a step, he collapses bonelessly to the ground.

Chapter Text

When Kakashi starts to fall over, the rest of Team Seven saw it coming from miles away.

Their reaction is quick and silent. Naruto and Sasuke each grab one of Kakashi’s arms before he can hit the ground; Sakura takes Kakashi’s right lower leg and makes sure that his wounded leg doesn’t move too much as the boys lower him to the ground. The three of them pull off Kakashi’s backpack and lay him down on his back. It all happens smoothly, without communication, without hesitation. Kakashi would probably be proud of their teamwork, Sakura thinks wrily, if he were conscious enough to see it.

When they’ve laid Kakashi down on the ground, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura kneel down beside him. The atmosphere between them isn’t panicked, not the way it was this morning. Now, their silence is just filled with something grim and resigned. Kakashi finally pushed himself too far.

For the second time this morning, Team Seven’s leader is lying on the ground, completely unresponsive.

Naruto is the first to speak, his voice sounding small. “He told us what to do when someone passes out,” he says. “What, uhm, what was the first step again? We should check his pulse, right?”

He looks between Sakura and Sasuke, gaze uncertain. With the abrupt realization that maybe no one ever taught Naruto how to take someone’s pulse, Sakura quickly scoots forwards and presses her fingers against Kakashi’s throat, finding his heartbeat. She did the same thing this morning, when Kakashi wouldn’t wake up; it was the first thing she did, even before she woke up the boys. It had been brief, but for a few seconds, she’d truly feared that Kakashi was dead.

Just like this morning, Sakura manages to find Kakashi’s pulse. It’s slow and steady. Sakura can feel the warmth of his skin through his mask.

She sits back and rests her hand in her lap. “His pulse is normal,” she says simply. “He’s alive.”

Naruto nods once, blinking rapidly. “Okay. Yeah. Good.”

Sakura nods back at him. “We should be prepared for when he wakes up,” she says. “He said his leg was hurting again – I think he might’ve passed out from the pain.” She notices how logical her tone is, almost calm, as though it’s not absolutely horrifying to imagine the amounts of pain that Kakashi must’ve been in. “Having the painkillers at the ready is probably a good idea.”

Naruto sighs and nods again, his gaze flat and his face pale. He’s silent as he takes the first-aid kit from Kakashi’s backpack, in stark contrast to the way he acted earlier this morning. Back then, he was yelling; visibly and loudly panicking. At some point, he’d started crying, while Naruto really isn’t the kind of person who cries easily. It had startled Sakura badly enough that she’d started crying as well.

Now, though, that panic is buried deeply underneath a thick layer of tiredness. Sakura recognizes that feeling; they’ve already realized that panicking doesn’t help, so now they don’t know how to feel.

Sasuke pulls out a fistful of grass and throws it on the ground. The gesture speaks of anger, but his face is expressionless. He doesn’t say anything. Sakura knows better than to try and reassure him, so she doesn’t say anything, either.

Naruto takes a blister pack of painkillers from the first-aid kit and plops down on the ground. He fidgets with the packaging, the plastic crinkling.

“I think Kakashi-sensei was lying when he said that he was fine,” he says, not looking up.

Sasuke scoffs at him. “You think?” he snaps, but he drops the angry tone almost immediately. His gaze rests on Kakashi’s slack face. “Either he was lying, or he genuinely believed that he was okay. I don’t know which is worse.” He yanks out another fistful of grass. “Either way, he’s an idiot.”

“Calling me names now, are we?” croaks a tired voice, and all eyes immediately snap back to Kakashi.

His eyes are barely open; the only indication that they’re open at all is the vague slit of red, the glow of his Sharingan, that’s visible through the eyelashes of his left eye. Some color has returned to his cheeks, although it’s an unhealthy-looking color – a dry and splotchy red.

As Sakura watches, his eyes slip shut again, and he exhales shakily. He clears his throat. “Sorry for passing out on you.”

“Don’t apologize,” Sakura says quickly.

“Are you in pain?” Naruto asks him. He holds out the painkillers at Kakashi. “Here.”

Kakashi hesitates briefly, as though he’s reluctant to accept the painkillers at all, but then he props himself up on one elbow and takes the blister pack from Naruto. “Thanks.” He fumbles a painkiller from the packaging – his hands shake so badly that he immediately almost drops it.

He dry-swallows the painkiller and lies back down with a sigh. He stares up at the sky, his gaze unfocused. His chest rises and falls with deliberate, exaggeratedly deep breaths, like he’s forcing himself to breathe slowly. Sakura can hear him exhale through his teeth.

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura stay silent; they’ve seen Kakashi faint before, after their first encounter with Zabuza. They know that they should give him a moment to collect himself. They’re worried, and they have questions, but they’re aware that Kakashi isn’t feeling well. They should wait until he’s no longer visibly struggling to stay conscious.

On top of that, Kakashi fainted because he ignored his students’ repeated requests to take a break. Sakura is scared that if she opened her mouth to speak, she would end up snapping at Kakashi, and that’s not what he needs right now.

Eventually, Kakashi slowly props himself up on his elbows and looks his students in the eye, one by one. “Sorry for passing out on you,” he repeats. “I… I think the pain suddenly got a bit too much for me to handle.”

“No shit,” Sasuke mutters. He scowls at Kakashi. “Maybe you should try to listen when we tell you to take a break. You looked like death. Did you think that we wouldn’t notice that you were in pain?”

“I… guess so. I don’t know.” Kakashi drags a hand across his face, pausing to press his index and middle finger against his temple. It looks like he’s trying to get rid of a headache. His hand still trembles.

Now that Sakura looks a little closer, Kakashi seems to be trembling all over – or shivering, rather, the pale hairs on his arms standing upright with goosebumps. Sakura can’t put her finger on why, but her chest feels tight with the sudden and sinking feeling that there’s something wrong.

The shivering, the redness in Kakashi’s face, the headache, the tiredness, the fact that he’s suddenly in more pain than before, the fainting – something is up.

“Sensei?” she asks. Kakashi looks over at her; the visible exhaustion in his gaze almost makes her falter, but she continues: “Are you sure that you fainted because you were in pain?”

Kakashi huffs a dry laugh. “Pretty sure, yeah.” His tone is guarded. He clearly wants her to stop asking questions.

“I mean…” Sakura bites the inside of her cheek, willing herself to keep talking. “Are you sure that there isn’t something else going on? I just feel like something isn’t right.”

“I’ve been noticing it, too,” Naruto adds quietly. “You seem sick, sensei.”

Kakashi’s shoulders visibly tense up. “I’m not sick,” he says. “I mean, sure, I’ve had better days, but I don’t think I’m sick. Just dealing with a little bit of pain. And I’ve told you multiple times that you’ve got much bigger things to worry about than me, so please just--”

And Sakura abruptly loses her patience. She’s tired of this. She’s tired of Kakashi waving off her worries, of listening to him saying that he’s fine.

Without regard for boundaries or politeness, she leans forward and presses the back of her hand against Kakashi’s forehead.

He flinches underneath the touch, his words catching in his throat. Despite the fact that he’s clearly uncomfortable, he doesn’t pull away; he just looks at the ground, as though bracing himself for Sakura’s reaction.

His forehead is warm. Too warm, and clammy with sweat. Sakura wants – badly – to just blame it on the hot weather, but she knows better. She pulls her hand back.

“You’re burning up,” Sakura says, her voice quiet. She’d suspected it, but she’d hoped that she was wrong. “I think you have a fever, sensei.”

Kakashi’s resigned expression doesn’t change. He nods once. “Yeah.”

Sakura bites the inside of her cheek. There isn’t the slightest hint of surprise on Kakashi’s face; it doesn’t seem to fit the situation. A fever is something serious, especially since they’re still so far from home. Especially since Kakashi is already hurt, and now he’s apparently gotten sick as well. She would’ve expected Kakashi to show the same kind of shock that she’s feeling.

“You already knew,” she states, “didn’t you?”

He hesitates. Then, he nods again. “Yeah.”

“For how long have you known?” Sakura asks, and she feels her voice rise without her permission.

Kakashi looks away, and Sakura can feel a heavy knot of dread forming in the pit of her stomach. “For a while,” he then admits, his voice nothing more than a rough whisper. “Four days.”

Naruto balls his fists next to Sakura. Sasuke grits his teeth. “You’ve been walking around with a fever for four days,” he repeats, his voice trembling with anger. “Four days, and you didn’t say anything.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Naruto demands. There’s something hurt in his eyes. “I’m pretty sure that fevers only get worse when you don’t rest – if you’d told us, we could’ve helped--”

“No, you couldn’t have. If I thought that you could’ve helped, I would’ve told you.” Kakashi drags a hand across his face, clearly struggling to focus. “Or… Or maybe I wouldn’t have, I don’t know-- The point is, the three of you have already been through so much during this mission. You’ve been through stuff that would give most jounin nightmares. You’ve got enough on your plates. It didn’t seem fair to dump my problems on you as well.”

“So you lied to us,” Sasuke says. “Because somehow you thought that that was a better idea.”

Kakashi briefly meets Sasuke’s gaze, but then he looks at the ground. Sakura realizes numbly that Kakashi can’t look him in the eye. “At first I didn’t say anything because I thought that maybe it’d just get better by itself. If that had happened, I would’ve added to your worries for no reason.” He shrugs, a tense gesture. “And then, when it got worse, I guess I wanted to protect you. Protect you from my problems, I mean, because you already have so many of your own. I wanted to keep you from feeling as helpless as I feel.” He clenches his jaws underneath his mask. “Look, I’m sorry I lied to you. I just wanted--”

“No,” Sasuke interrupts him. His face has rapidly gone red. “No, you know what, I don’t give a damn about why you thought it was a good idea to lie to us. What I want to know is exactly what is wrong and how we can fix it. So explain it to us – and don’t you dare say that you’re fine.”

Kakashi meets Sasuke’s gaze squarely. Despite the angry nature of the gesture, Kakashi only seems tired. “We can’t fix this,” he says.

“Why not?” Naruto asks quietly.

“Because we’re stuck in the middle of the woods, without access to medical attention or antibiotics,” Kakashi replies, and he pauses to swallow difficultly, “and my wound got infected.”

“It what?”

“I-- My wound got infected.” Kakashi grimaces, as though having to repeat it physically pains him. Then, he laughs weakly. “It’s no use keeping it from you, anymore. You would’ve found out by yourselves at some point, anyway. I see that now – the three of you are far more observant than I’ve been giving you credit for.” The tension drops from his shoulders; Sakura notices that he suddenly looks a lot more tired than he did before. “So, yeah. That’s why I’ve got a fever. It’s because my wound is infected.”

“Have you known that for four days as well?” Sasuke asks. The angry redness in his face has been replaced by a much paler color.

Kakashi’s chin dips down in a nod. “Yeah.”

“That’s-- really bad, isn’t it?” Naruto asks, his voice small. “And you said that it hasn’t been getting better, and we don’t have any way to treat it…” He makes a panicked sound, almost like a whine. His breathing quickens. “I don’t… I don’t remember everything from what we were taught about it, but infected wounds hurt a lot, right? You’ve probably been in so much pain, and we didn’t even notice--”

“Naruto. Hey.” Sasuke scowls at him. “He’s actively been trying to hide how hurt he is. It’s stupid to blame yourself for not seeing through that.”

“I wasn’t in pain the whole time,” Kakashi says, almost meekly. “I took half of a soldier pill, the day before yesterday. So the past two days haven’t been bad at all.”

“A soldier pill?” Sakura muses out loud. “That… Yeah, that explains a lot.” It explains the sudden energy that Kakashi had had for the past two days, and the complete crash that he had today. It explains why he suddenly started limping worse yesterday afternoon; it wasn’t because he’d twisted his foot like he said, but it was because the effects of the half soldier pill started wearing off around that time.

She clenches her jaws. Soldier pills are powerful, but they have serious drawbacks – the chakra exhaustion that follows when the effects of the pills wear off can be bad enough to put people in the hospital. And Kakashi knows that, too. It feels like a physical weight on her heart, to imagine how desperate Kakashi must’ve been to resort to using soldier pills. How bad his pain must’ve been, if painkillers were no longer enough.

“It’s really serious,” she says, looking Kakashi in the eye, “isn’t it?”

She distantly hopes that Kakashi will just tell them that it’s not that bad – more than that, she hopes that when he says that, he’ll be telling the truth.

That doesn’t happen, though. Kakashi just shakes his head, looking resigned. “It’s not great,” he says. “The fever isn’t a good sign, and the wound itself is a mess. Kind of hurts, too.” He huffs a wry laugh. “It hasn’t developed into sepsis yet, though, so that’s something.”

“What’s sepsis?” Naruto asks, frowning. He looks almost like he doesn’t want to know.

“Basically, when you don’t treat an infection quickly enough, the infection can start to spread,” Sakura replies. “And it can make you really sick. That’s called sepsis.” She notices that her tone is grim; she’s normally happy to explain things, but not this time. Not when Naruto looks at her like she’s just punched him in the gut. “It doesn’t always happen,” she adds, though the optimism in her tone is thin. “Sometimes, infections just get better by themselves. But when they develop into sepsis, it’s… it’s dangerous. Life-threatening, sometimes.”

“That’s the long and short of it, yeah,” Kakashi says. “It hasn’t gotten to that point yet, though.”

“You know,” Sasuke reacts, his voice low, “you say that it hasn’t become sepsis yet, but I can’t even believe that. You’ve been lying to us for so long that I don’t trust that you’re telling the truth, not even now.” He gestures towards the bandages around Kakashi’s leg with his chin, and Kakashi flinches minutely. “Let us see the wound,” Sasuke says.

Kakashi visibly pales. He hesitates, for a long time. Sakura can understand why; this mission has made it clear that Kakashi is a man who really, really doesn’t like showing weakness. He’s been putting a lot of effort into hiding his pain, into pretending that he is fine for the team’s sake – and now he’s being asked to show off exactly how hurt he is. She can understand his reluctance.

“You don’t have to,” she says, when Kakashi sits up and reaches towards the bandages. “It wasn’t a reasonable thing to ask. You don’t have to show us.” Sasuke glares at her, but Sakura ignores him.

Kakashi shakes his head. “No, it’s…” He looks his students in the eye, one by one. There’s a hint of something sharply determined in his gaze, underneath his visible exhaustion. “I’m sorry for lying to you before. It wasn’t the right call to make, and I understand why you wouldn’t trust me right now. If you need proof that I’m not lying, then I understand that.”

He reaches for the bandages again. Sakura doesn’t stop him, this time. Truth be told, she is having a hard time believing Kakashi – he’s been lying to them about his health all this time, after all. It’d probably be better to see how bad the wound is with her own eyes, instead of taking his word for it.

It does sting, though… It really doesn’t feel right to suddenly have to second-guess everything Kakashi says. She just hopes that he’s speaking the truth, this time. If he really had sepsis, surely he would find that important enough to tell them, right? Sakura hates the fact that she isn’t sure.

Kakashi carefully starts untying the bandages around his thigh. He winces as he does so; Sakura shares a worried look with Naruto and Sasuke. They don’t say anything.

At some point – Sakura guesses that the bandages are stuck to the wound – Kakashi flinches visibly and pauses. His hand tightens around the end of the bandage that he’s holding, his fingers turning white.

He breathes out slowly, his grip relaxing again, and pulls at the bandage. The effect is immediate; Kakashi curls in on himself, gasping for breath. His eyes squeeze shut in a grimace.

“Stop,” Naruto says – when Sakura turns to look at him, he looks vaguely like he’s about to be sick. “Stop, sensei. Don’t hurt yourself. Just… We don’t need to see your wound. We believe you. Really.”

“You shouldn’t,” Kakashi replies quietly. All color has drained from his face. “You shouldn’t believe me. I’ve given you every reason to doubt my honesty. But I won’t make that same stupid decision again.” He swallows difficultly. “So I’m… I’m done keeping things from you three. So I need you to see this – so that you can be sure that I’m not lying to you again. It’s only fair.”

With a determined nod, he leans forward again and continues to unwrap the bandages. His jaws are visibly clenched underneath his mask. The bandages are clearly still sticking to the wound, but Kakashi forces himself to push through. Every so often, his left leg gives a noticeable twitch, but he doesn’t pause. He keeps unravelling the bandages like it’s the most important thing in the world.

Naruto looks away, his hands balled into tight fists in the front of his T-shirt. It looks to Sakura like Naruto is feeling all the pain that Kakashi doesn’t allow himself to show. She knows the feeling – every time Kakashi winces, she winces along.

Finally, Kakashi unties the bandage completely and leans back on his elbows, panting heavily. He’s trembling worse than before, each breath shuddering in his chest. Sweat soaks the fabric of his tank top, dark around his neck. His face is sheet-white. Sakura looks at his face for a moment, making sure that he’s not going to pass out again, before she shifts her attention to the uncovered wound – and she can feel her stomach twist.

Before this moment, Sakura had only caught glimpses of the wound, and that was back when it was still bleeding; underneath all of that blood, it was difficult to judge what the wound looked like, exactly, and how serious it was. After that, it was hidden neatly under bandages, and Kakashi said he was okay, and Sakura allowed herself to believe that it wasn’t as serious as she’d initially thought.

She should never have let herself believe that. Now that she’s looking down at the wound, it’s almost impossible to imagine that Kakashi has been walking on this leg for well over a week.

The cut is large, she’d known that, but she hadn’t expected it to be this large. It stretches across Kakashi’s entire upper leg; a red, jagged line, held together by stitches.

A bit dizzily, Sakura imagines the path of the sword that did this. By the looks of it, it slashed through the skin underneath Kakashi’s hip first, narrowly missing the joint. Then, it cut diagonally downwards through his upper leg, tearing apart skin and muscle and blood vessels and whatever else might’ve been in its way. There’s an artery somewhere in the thigh; Sakura wonders how close the blade got to that, how close Kakashi had been to bleeding out.

The blade exited again right above his knee, where it had clearly lost some of its momentum; the skin looks more raw there, like it’s been pulled apart rather than sliced.

All of this happened in a single swing, probably in less than half a second’s time, and it clearly happened with the intention of cutting off Kakashi’s leg. Thankfully, that didn’t happen – though Sakura finds it hard to feel optimistic about that. Kakashi still has his leg, but that’s pretty much everything that’s positive about this situation. Because the fact that Kakashi’s leg is still attached to his body doesn’t stop said leg from looking absolutely awful.

Most of his thigh is swollen badly, the skin looking tight and red. The swelling is clearly pulling at the stitches; the spots around the stitches are a deep crimson, as though the skin has recently been torn open a little there. Worst of all, there’s some sort of pale liquid coming from the wound. Sakura doesn’t dare look at it too closely.

“You said it was just a cut,” Naruto says to Kakashi, the despair in his tone now mixed with something accusing. “If we’d known that it was this bad, we would’ve-- We would’ve-- I don’t know what we would’ve done, but I just would’ve wanted to know.”

“I know. I know what I said, and I’m sorry.” Kakashi’s tone sounds defeated, and his eyes are heavy-lidded and bloodshot. “Like I said, I just didn’t want to add to your problems--”

“And like I said, I don’t care,” Sasuke snaps. He turns to Sakura. “Speak, Sakura. Is it septic?”

Before this mission, Sakura would’ve been over the moon at the realization that Sasuke assumes that she knows this, that he thinks she’s smart. Now, all she can do is numbly shake her head. “It’s not,” she says.

The wound may look gruesome now, but if it were septic, it would’ve looked even worse. She remembers the pictures in the medical book that she’d borrowed from the library, months ago now. She’d thought the pictures were gross, back then, and she’d only briefly skimmed over the pages because the descriptions made her squeamish. She hadn’t bothered to properly read the information – because she was naïve enough to assume that she’d never need to use it. Which was stupid, because that information could very well decide whether Kakashi lives or dies.

Sakura shakes herself. It’s no use giving into that despair, not now, not yet. Chances are that Kakashi won’t get sepsis; maybe his body is strong enough to keep the infection under control by itself. Although Sakura doesn’t have much faith in the strength of Kakashi’s body, not when he’s shaking like this. Not when he’s feverish and so, so pale.

But statistically, he has a chance. Not as big a chance as Sakura would’ve liked, but still.

Sasuke’s shoulders sag with relief, though Sakura is sure that he would’ve preferred to hide that relief underneath his anger. “So you weren’t lying,” he says to Kakashi. “This time, at least.”

Kakashi nods. “I’ll be honest with you, from now on,” he murmurs. His eyes have slipped shut; it seems that the conversation has tired him out badly.

A silence falls, during which Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura have time to wrap their heads around everything. It’s a lot to work through.

Sakura mostly feels incredulous. She knows how difficult and exhausting it is to try and hide an injury – she tried, briefly, to hide the fact that she broke her arm, in fear of inconveniencing Kakashi when he was already dealing with so many problems.

It was Kakashi who taught her that it was okay to rely on others when you’re hurt. The fact that he wouldn’t follow his own advice makes something sting in her heart. Sure, Sakura can understand that showing weakness in front of an enemy will just get you killed, but his teammates aren’t his enemies, and Sakura can’t imagine that he believes that they are. Did he think that they wouldn’t be able to handle the truth? Or did he believe that he wasn’t allowed to ask for help because he’s their leader? Was it pride? Fear of judgement? Plain stubbornness?

She isn’t sure, and she isn’t sure if it matters anymore. What matters now is that they get home, and that Kakashi gets to the hospital, and that they give Kakashi the help that they didn’t know he needed.

She turns to Kakashi, with new determination. “So what do we do now?” she asks him.

Kakashi shrugs. “We keep going,” he says. “It’s not much farther until we’re at a point where I can send out a ninken to get help from Konoha. If we walk for another couple of hours, I can take the other half of the soldier pill and then I’ll be okay for another while. We just keep going. There’s nothing else we can do.” His eyes open a little, something amused flickering in his gaze. “Unless you’re planning on abandoning me in the woods, if you think that that’ll increase your chances of getting home. Or putting me out of my misery. Both things happened in ANBU, occasionally.”

He says it so blithely that Sakura isn’t sure whether he’s joking or not. Either way, none of them are really in the mood for jokes right now. Sasuke snarls; “Shut the Hell up. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Those who abandon their teammates, are worse than trash,” Naruto says. “That’s what you told us, sensei.”

Kakashi laughs in response. Inexplicably, there’s relief mixed into the sound. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.”

Sasuke sighs. “That fever is making you weird.” He looks Kakashi in the eye. “Hey, be honest with us,” Sasuke says, and his tone is forceful enough that it almost sounds like a command. “Don’t joke around this time. Just… Are we going to make it home?”

Kakashi pushes himself up on his elbows a little further. “Yes.”

“Are all four of us going to make it home? Alive?” Sasuke’s voice rises. “You told me you weren’t going to die. Is that true?”

Kakashi’s gaze is serious. “I still intend to keep that promise.”

“Good.” Sasuke gets up from the ground. “Let’s go, then. The three of us can carry you.”

“I could make a bunch of clones to help carry,” Naruto says, his earlier shock seemingly forgotten at the realization that he can help make things better. “We’ll get where we’re supposed to be in no time!”

“I have full faith in that.” Kakashi lowers himself to the ground with a huff. “Just… give me a moment, okay? If I’m going to be honest anyway, I might as well be honest about the fact that my head is killing me – so if you summoned a bunch of your clones right now, Naruto, I’m afraid my brain would explode.”

Sasuke snorts loudly. Naruto makes an offended noise, but he doesn’t yell like he normally would; it occurs to Sakura that he’s being considerate about Kakashi’s headache. “I could just tell them to be quiet,” he grumbles.

He doesn’t argue further than that, though, and they give Kakashi some time to fight back his headache. It’s weird to see him do that; it’s weird to see him voluntarily show any type of weakness. It’s good, though. It’s weird to see him trust the rest of Team Seven enough to admit when he needs to lie down and close his eyes for a bit, but they’ll just have to get used to it. Sakura gladly gets used to it. Kakashi has already missed so much rest because he wouldn’t let himself rest.

They leave five minutes later, Kakashi carried on the hands of a large group of Naruto’s clones.

Chapter Text

Relying on his students is not as difficult as Kakashi had expected.

He’d expected his students to be angry, because he lied to them. He’d expected them to be scared, because they’d just become aware of how difficult their situation truly was. He’d expected that they’d lose any kind of respect that they still had for him, because he was showing this much weakness while he was their leader. Because they are supposed to rely on him, not the other way around.

It turns out that he’d severely underestimated his students: the three of them take it surprisingly well.

Sure, they’re mad about the fact that he lied to them – there’s some yelling, and Sasuke openly and rightfully calls him an idiot to his face – but their anger quickly makes way for a competence that Kakashi honestly hadn’t expected from these genin. Naruto bullies him into letting a group of clones carry him, and he keeps up the Shadow Clone jutsu for hours as they travel. Sasuke keeps an eye on their surroundings, and Sakura reads the map and makes sure that they’re going in the right direction. The three of them are being much more mature than Kakashi had expected. Better than that, they’re working together. They’re working together seamlessly, in fact.

Kakashi wants to be proud of them for their teamwork, and he wants to be relieved that they’re not too mad at him. But he doesn’t feel proud, and he doesn’t feel relieved. He doesn’t feel ashamed or guilty either, which are definitely emotions that he’d expected to be feeling right about now.

Instead, for the hours after his students find out about his fever and his infection, he’s too exhausted to feel much of anything apart from pain.

As a cruel response to Kakashi finally accepting help, his body decides to shut down, almost completely. Suddenly, all the pain and tiredness and sickness that he’d been trying so hard to hide hit him full force.

So relying on his students is not as difficult as Kakashi had expected. His mind hardly protests against it, in fact – which is probably because he’s not sure if he’s able to walk anymore, at this point. Accepting his students’ help is practically all he can do.

So he gratefully lets Naruto’s clones carry him; it’s not like he has enough energy to be embarrassed about being carried, anyway. His head is swimming with fever, and what little coherent thought he has is occupied with how much his leg hurts.

They travel quickly; now that Kakashi’s stumbling is no longer holding them back, his students can run. They’re quiet, too focused to talk. The silence and the steady rhythm of his students’ footsteps lull Kakashi into a state of almost-sleep, no matter how badly he wants to keep his eyes open.

The lines between sleep and wakefulness blur, Kakashi’s mind too exhausted to consistently tell the difference between reality and dream. He’s probably a little delirious, but his head aches too much to give it much thought.

Once, squinting through his eyelashes and half-blinded by the sunlight, he mistakes one of Naruto’s clones for Minato-sensei. The confusion only lasts for a split second, but it’s enough to make something ache inside his chest. He falls asleep again before he can identify the feeling as sadness, though.

He drifts in and out of sleep, unable to stay awake for longer than a few minutes at a time, and he’s not sure whether it’s the fever that keeps knocking him out or the constant pain. The pain follows him even in his unconsciousness, as does the sensation of shivering.

He spends a couple of hours in this state of not-quite-awakeness, though Kakashi can only remember a few minutes of that time afterwards, his head too filled with pain and fever to make room for memories. When he wakes up properly again, someone is gently shaking his shoulder. “Kakashi-sensei. Hey, wake up.”

Kakashi groggily blinks open his eyes, though they immediately squeeze shut again. His leg is giving off dizzying waves of pain. That painkiller that he took this morning must’ve started wearing off.

The hand that was shaking his shoulder stays there, a weight on his shoulder. It doesn’t help the pain go away, but Kakashi supposes the pressure is somewhat comforting. He’s too tired to feel embarrassed about the fact that he needs comfort in the first place.

When the pain ebbs away a little, he opens his eyes again, squinting against the sunlight. He slowly becomes aware of the fact that he’s lying on the ground, his students sitting next to him. Naruto’s clones have disappeared; Naruto himself is sitting cross-legged on the grass, panting. The kid looks tired, which makes sense – keeping up the Shadow Clone jutsu for hours is no small feat for a genin. And now that the clones have dispersed, he gets to feel their tiredness on top of his own as well.

Kakashi clears his throat. “Why did we stop?” he asks. “Did you guys need a break?” His throat is dry; his voice is so quiet that he can’t hear himself speak. He’s sure that he sounds every bit as sick as he feels.

Naruto laughs, wiping at the sweat on his face. “That’s part of it, yeah,” he says. “I didn’t realize that it’d be so tiring to keep the clones up for so long. It’s good training, I guess, but now I’m beat.”

“That’s not the main reason we stopped, though,” Sakura says. She holds out the map at Kakashi and points at a spot in the middle of the dark green mass that represents the forest on the map. “If I’m reading the map right, we’re over here right now,” she tells him. “That’s close enough, right? For you to take the other half of the soldier pill?”

Kakashi blinks at her, briefly confused. His eyes flicker over to the sky; judging by the position of the sun, it’s still morning. It’s still morning, while he had thought that they wouldn’t get here until at least two in the afternoon. They traveled much faster than he expected.

“Is… something wrong?” Sakura asks – in his surprise, Kakashi had almost forgotten that he still has to reply to her. “Did I read the map wrong?”

Kakashi shakes his head. “No, you did well. You all did.” A tired smile tugs at his mouth. “This is plenty close enough.”

He tries to sit up a little, not entirely successfully; he only manages to lift his head off the ground. His students quickly realize and help him upright until he’s sitting with his back against a tree. Kakashi distantly feels glad that he doesn’t need to pretend he’s fine anymore. He’s too exhausted to sit upright, and it would be so tiring to pretend he’s not.

Once he’s sitting upright, he reaches into his weapons pouch and takes out the blister pack of soldier pills. The other half of the soldier pill that he took two days ago is still in the blister pack, pressed into the plastic. It’s surprising that it didn’t fall out somewhere along the way.

As Kakashi fumbles the half soldier pill from the packaging, Naruto watches him, his eyebrows drawn together. “Do you really need to take that soldier pill anymore?” Naruto asks him. “It’s going to make you really tired, isn’t it? I mean, I get that you want to walk and stuff, and that it’ll help with the pain – but I could just make more clones and let them carry you. Isn’t that the better option?”

Sasuke shrugs. “He’s got a point,” he tells Kakashi. “We’re here to help, now. Is that soldier pill worth the risk?”

The half soldier pill rests in the palm of Kakashi’s hand. Kakashi stares at it, hesitating. The plan to take this soldier pill originally came from his desire to hide that he was in too much pain to walk; it’s true that he doesn’t need to do that, anymore.

But there’s a new reason to take this half of the soldier pill, a new anxiety that’s gnawing at his mind. That anxiety stems directly from the fact that he can’t think, that he can barely stay awake, that it probably won’t be long before the pain or the fever make him too tired to communicate.

His students are here to help – but Kakashi, in his desire to keep them out of this, has neglected to tell them what they’re supposed to do when he starts to shut down. If he passes out and doesn’t wake up, or if the fever makes him delirious, or if he ends up in too much pain to speak, his students will have no idea what to do. And Kakashi currently isn’t in any condition to explain it to them. He’s barely able to speak at all, let alone to properly focus on what he’s saying.

If he takes the soldier pill, though… If he takes the soldier pill, he has time to tell them what’s going to happen. He’ll end up with serious chakra exhaustion, sure, but if he doesn’t take the soldier pill, his exhaustion will claim him a whole lot sooner. Without the soldier pill, he could shut down tomorrow, or in an hour, or in a minute, and he would leave his students terrified and helpless. He’d much prefer to shut down with the knowledge that his students are prepared for it. He owes them that much, after fainting on them.

On top of that, he needs to take the soldier pill anyway, because he needs to summon one of his ninken later and that’s a pretty crucial part of Team Seven getting home alive. He needs the extra chakra that the soldier pill would give him.

So Kakashi shakes his head. “You’re both right,” he tells Naruto and Sasuke, “but I’m going to take the soldier pill anyway. There’s still so much that I have to tell you, and I can’t do that when I feel this bad.”

At that, his students look away, letting him pull down his mask. Without hesitation, Kakashi takes the soldier pill and closes his eyes.

Just like last time, the pain melts away. Kakashi can feel his head getting clearer; his thoughts no longer feel like they’re out of reach. A hint of a headache remains, but it doesn’t feel like his brain is getting squashed anymore.

When he opens his eyes, his vision isn’t blurred. His students are staring at him; Kakashi gives them a smile. Slowly, he gets his feet underneath him.

His students’ eyes widen almost comically. They scramble upright along with him, reaching out their hands as though to catch him if he were to fall. Kakashi is tempted to let that bother him, but he decides not to. He doesn’t fall, but if he did, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have someone who caught him.

He finds his balance, carefully leaning a hand against the tree. The pain hasn’t entirely vanished from his leg, he notices – the wound still throbs, and when he experimentally leans some weight onto his bad leg, a vague stab of pain shoots through the cut. It’s bearable, although it’s concerning to realize that his pain is so bad that even a soldier pill can’t fully hide it.

Sasuke backs away a little, narrowing his eyes at Kakashi. “Are you going to fall over again?” he asks, almost skeptically.

Kakashi laughs in response. “Not if I can help it,” he replies. He looks down at his students, who still seem ready to spring into action at his slightest hint of weakness. “Stand down, genin,” he tells them, gently. “The soldier pill is working. I’m not in pain anymore, not right now.”

“Is that the truth?” Sasuke demands.

Kakashi is, once again, struck with the realization that he’s taught his students not to trust him. It hurts to see that they assume he’s lying. It hurts more to know that they could’ve very well been right. “It’s true,” he replies. His voice still scratches a little in his throat. “I’m feeling okay. Though the effects of the soldier pill are going to wear off in about thirty-six hours, so we should get going. We’ve still got a pretty long way to go in that time.”

Naruto nods and lowers his hands. “You said you had a lot to tell us, right?” he asks. “You should tell us as we walk.”

“Yeah. I will.” Kakashi fights down the uncomfortable feeling that’s stirring in his gut. He’s going to need to be honest with his students from now on, whether he likes it or not. He owes them that much.

To distract himself from his discomfort, he takes a step forward. He expects his leg to immediately scream out – his students expect that too, judging by the way they start forward – but he barely feels anything. Just an uncomfortable twinge of pain, like a muscle cramp.

“Right,” he says, now that he’s properly on his feet again. “Let’s get going.”

Kakashi ends up talking for the entire afternoon. He considers it part of making amends for lying to his students. He has to make amends; now that he has enough energy to think, the guilt of lying to his students really hits him. They should be supposed to trust him, and he lied to them. That’s not right. He’d like to do more to make it up to them – just honesty and distraction isn’t enough to make things right – but there’s only so much he can do right now, with a ticking time bomb in his leg.

Still, he does what he can. He can’t change the fact that his wound is infected, but he can distract his students from their problems, even just briefly. He can remind them that they’re almost home. He can teach them what to do when the soldier pill wears off and Kakashi ends up exhausted and fever-ridden and most likely in horrible pain – it seems like that’s a scary thing to talk about, but being prepared seems to calm his students down. His honesty about the situation probably helps, too.

It feels selfish, to spend the day teaching his students how to keep him alive, but he supposes he’s allowed to be selfish in this instance. He refuses to die on them. He lost his own sensei, and he refuses to put anyone else through that.

Now that he’s able to think about it, it chills him to the bone how much worse things could’ve gotten if his students hadn’t found out about his infection when they did. Kakashi is pretty sure that if he hadn’t passed out when he did, he would have kept lying to his students until they got back to Konoha. In the best case scenario, his students would’ve never found out that his wound got infected at all, and they could’ve lived in blissful ignorance of the fact that this mission was an even bigger mess than they knew – which is the scenario that Kakashi had been hoping for, but he realizes in retrospect that it was a plan that was very unlikely to succeed.

In the plethora of worst case scenarios that could’ve happened, though, he would’ve kept pushing himself, and he eventually would’ve collapsed in an even worse state than he is in now. Possibly, he wouldn’t have woken up again, or he could’ve woken up delirious or in too much pain to speak, and he would’ve left his students with absolutely no idea of what to do.

And it aches. Where the soldier pill effectively blocks out Kakashi’s physical pain, it does nothing to block out his complete and utter shame about the situation. He’s been so stupid. He ended up so exhausted and in so much pain in part because he refused to admit that he was getting worse. Sure, he wouldn’t have been able to heal the infection by talking about it, but maybe he wouldn’t have had to walk on his wounded leg as much if he’d just admitted that he wasn’t doing well. Maybe he wouldn’t have needed to take the soldier pill, and he wouldn’t have ended up so exhausted.

Maybe if he hadn’t been so terrified of adding to his students’ problems, his students wouldn’t have had to see him faint. They wouldn’t have had to realize that Kakashi – whom they should be able to trust – had been lying to them. Worse, that he would have continued to lie to them if they hadn’t found out by themselves.

He wants to blame his ANBU training, but he knows that that’s not fair. He just should’ve known better. And if his students think that he’s a hypocrite, then they’re right. He tried to teach them not to close themselves off, and he tried to teach them not to push others away, and he tried to teach them to ask for help when they need it – he tried to teach them not to become like him. He was so busy teaching them that he completely forgot to actually set the right example for them.

But that’s in the past, now. All he can do for the future is make sure that he regains his students’ trust.

So he talks, and he’s honest about what’s going to happen. He’s honest about how sick his wound is going to make him, and he’s honest about the fact that soldier pills have a history of really messing him up once they wear off. He’s honest about the fact that he’ll probably need to stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks when they get home.

Once again, his students handle it all surprisingly well. They listen to him with a quiet sort of determination. They ask a lot of questions; Kakashi isn’t a medical-nin, but he does have a lot of experience getting hurt, so he explains what he can. Sakura occasionally explains things further whenever Kakashi accidentally uses a word that’s too difficult. By the end of the day, his students’ knowledge about medical things is almost equal to Kakashi’s own knowledge.

They keep walking until long after the sun has set. Kakashi doesn’t get tired, and his students seem well aware of how little time they have, so no one really wants to stop traveling. They finally stop when Naruto starts to yawn, still tired from his Shadow Clone jutsu from earlier.

They settle down for the night and eat. Their dinner is the last of the plants that Naruto gathered yesterday. Kakashi can tell by the sleepiness in his students’ eyes that they’re tired, but none of them seem to want to sleep yet. Kakashi doesn’t blame them.

They lapse into silence after they’ve eaten; a silence that Kakashi doesn’t interrupt. He recognizes that his students need some time to think.

After a while, Naruto turns to him. There’s something in his expression that makes him seem even younger than he is. “Sensei?” he says.

“Yeah?”

“I know that this isn’t the first time you got hurt, and I know that you said that you’ll probably be okay in the end,” Naruto says, “but… this is still going to suck for you. You said that you’re probably going to get sicker when the soldier pill wears off, right? Knowing that has got to be hard.” He fidgets with the hem of his T-shirt, the point he was trying to make briefly lost. “What I’m trying to say is: if you’re scared, you’re allowed to admit it. We get it.”

Sasuke scoffs. “What would he need to be scared for?” he asks. “We’re not going to let him die. We’re skilled enough to make sure that we all get out of this alive.”

“Still, though,” Naruto replies, turning back to Kakashi. “If I were in your shoes, I’d be pretty scared, sensei.”

Kakashi hesitates. This has turned into a conversation about feelings, and he’s always strongly disliked those – but he did promise his students that he’d be honest with them. “I don’t think I’d say that I’m scared,” he says, eventually. “Not for my own life, I mean. I’ve survived worse. And sure, I’m going to feel like crap when the soldier pill wears off and I’m not exactly looking forward to that, but it doesn’t scare me.” He chews on his lip, thinking. “However… I am aware that I’m putting a lot of responsibility on you three. I’m not scared for my own life, but I am scared that you’re going to blame yourselves if something goes wrong. And even if everything does go well, I’m still going to be incapacitated for a while and you’re still going to be under a lot of stress. I’m scared of the effect that that stress might have on you, mentally.”

“So you still feel like it would’ve been better to keep us out of this,” Sasuke says, his tone sharp. “That’s what you’re saying, right?”

“Not exactly,” Kakashi replies. “I’m grateful for your help. I just don’t want you to suffer because you decided to help me.” He sighs. “I’m scared that despite all your best efforts, something might still go wrong. If that happens, I’m scared that you’ll end up carrying a lot of guilt with you. Which is messed up, because you should never have been responsible for my life in the first place.” This mission has already proven that these kids are far too quick to place blame on themselves. They’re like him, in that regard. “So just… promise me that if things go South, you won’t blame yourselves, okay?”

Sakura nods. “We won’t.”

“We’re just not going to let anything go South,” Sasuke says.

“Yeah, you can count on us, sensei,” Naruto adds. “We’ll just make sure that you’re going to be okay.” He grins at Kakashi; “I mean, you taught us a bunch today. We know what’s going to happen and what we’re supposed to do. You don’t have to be scared about us getting stressed; you’ve prepared us well, after all.”

It’s naïve to assume that everything is just going to be okay, but there’s something about Naruto’s specific brand of optimism that lifts a weight off Kakashi’s chest. Maybe it’s the confirmation that his students really don’t mind helping him out that makes him feel better. “All right, then,” he says. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Naruto replies, and his words are immediately followed by a loud yawn.

“You should go to sleep,” Kakashi tells him. “You, too, Sakura, Sasuke. Today must’ve been a long day for you, and we’ll need to travel a lot tomorrow. You should get some rest; I’ll stand guard. I won’t be able to sleep, anyway.”

“Fine,” Sasuke grumbles, lying down on his back.

“Just wake us up if you need our help,” Sakura says.

“I will,” Kakashi says, even though all of his problems are currently buried underneath the effects of the soldier pill. “Good night.”

“Good night,” answer his genin in chorus, and the night is silent from that moment on.

The next day has a distinct air of finality around it. It makes sense; when this day is over, things will change. When this day is over, Team Seven will have sent a ninken to Konoha to get help. When this day is over, all they’ll have to do is wait for that help to arrive. When this day is over, Kakashi’s soldier pill will wear off and he’ll end up tired and in pain again.

This is their last day of traveling, so they decide to hold nothing back. After this day, they get to rest, after all. So Team Seven travels with a pace that could almost be called running. Kakashi’s leg complains about it, but the stitches hold under the pressure, so he decides not to care. The closer they can get to Konoha, the better.

His students try to hide it, but the weirdness of this day clearly makes them restless. They’re quiet and frowning. Kakashi wracks his brain for a way to distract them; he ends up quizzing them on random facts they learned at the Academy. At this point, it’s no use repeating the medical lessons he’s taught them, after all. They’re practically experts at this point. Rehashing those lessons over and over will only make them more anxious.

Kakashi’s methods of distraction work, though Naruto gets bored at some point, so they end up talking about what’s going on at home. Someone has probably noticed that they’re missing by now, they conclude. They’ve been gone for almost five more days than they should. Their disappearance may have already been reported to the Hokage. Knowing Konoha, and knowing the Third, it’d probably be a while longer before someone is actually sent out to look for Team Seven, but it’s nice to imagine that someone may be missing them.

That thought seems to make Sakura a little sad, though – she hasn’t seen her parents in a long time, after all – so they switch to a lighter topic after that. Kakashi distracts his students with information about the Chuunin Exams, which should be starting a few days from now. It’s weird to realize that it’s almost July. It feels like time has been standing still ever since they were attacked. The kids listen to what he’s saying, though they don’t really seem keen on taking the exams yet. Kakashi understands; they’ve had enough stress lately. They could always take the exams at a later date, when they haven’t just returned from a mission filled with near-death experiences.

When the afternoon starts fading into the evening and the shadows become longer, Naruto’s attention span becomes shorter, and he ends up gathering food again for a while. He stays close, which gives Kakashi a chance to close his Sharingan and try to conserve his chakra. If he used up too much chakra to summon one of his ninken later, things would get a whole lot harder for them. He’d prefer to play it safe and stop using up chakra for now.

Around ten in the evening, when the trees have started casting meters-long shadows and the forest floor is mostly dark, Kakashi calls Naruto back to him. “Hey, Naruto, get back here. I think this is close enough.”

Naruto runs back to the group and skids to a halt next to Kakashi, holding a fistful of dandelion leaves. “I saw a cabin, over there,” Naruto says, pointing. “From what I could tell, it’s abandoned. Probably an old hunter’s cabin, I think. Maybe we could go there after we’ve sent for help? Seems like a good place to wait for help.”

“Good idea,” Kakashi agrees, taking the map from his weapons pouch. “We’ll be waiting for two days, so it’s not a bad thing to have some shelter.”

He checks Team Seven’s location on the map one more time before he kneels down and takes out a kunai. As his students stand guard, he cuts open his fingertip and, finally, summons one of his ninken. Uhei – the fastest of the pack – appears with a cloud of smoke.

“Uhei, I need you to deliver a message to Konoha,” Kakashi says before Uhei can say anything; time is of the essence. “Tell them that Team Seven is stuck in the woods after a mission gone wrong, and that we’re in need of assistance. Tell them to send a medic.” Kakashi doesn’t need to tell him that he’s injured; Uhei probably already understands that. This isn’t the first time Kakashi has had to summon one of his ninken to get help for him because he was too injured to move. That, and the way he’s awkwardly stretching his leg in front of him probably gives it away.

“Will do.” Uhei looks up at Kakashi. There’s no nervousness in his gaze, no pity. The ninken are used to Kakashi getting hurt. It’s both refreshing and kind of embarrassing. “Anything else you need me to tell them?”

“It’s probably a good idea if they bring antibiotics. I have a cut on my leg that got infected five days ago, and I don’t know what state it’s going to be in by the time help arrives. Other than that, medical ninjutsu should be enough.” Kakashi lays the map out on the ground and marks their current location with the blood from his fingertip. “Take this.” He gives Uhei a bit of a wry look. “If you hurry, you’ll make it to Konoha before your time runs out. You’ll have to run for the next twenty-four hours without rest. Sorry about that.”

Uhei scoffs. “Twenty-four hours is nothing. I can do that easily.” He takes a corner of the map between his teeth and turns around. “You guys just hang tight,” he says with the map in his mouth. “I’ll get you that help.”

“Thanks,” Kakashi replies, and Uhei takes off.

They watch Uhei disappear between the trees. The moment he fades from view, Team Seven heaves a collective sigh of relief. Kakashi can feel a weight drop off his shoulders.

“Well, that was that,” he says, getting up from the ground. “Now all we’ll have to do is wait--”

The next thing he knows, his students are clinging to him in a relieved embrace. It startles Kakashi at first, but then he gives in and wraps his arms around his students. They’ve been working towards this moment for nine days. They’re not out of the woods yet, but they’re allowed to celebrate this victory.

They stand there for a while, holding one another close. Sakura leans her forehead against Kakashi’s chest, her eyes closed. Naruto has his arms wrapped around both her and Kakashi, squeezing them tightly. Sasuke seems hesitant, but he, too, is relieved enough to let down his guard.

They’re close enough that Kakashi can feel the three of them breathe. They’re alive. They’ve made it this far. They could’ve died at so many points, but they didn’t. They’ve survived so much. They can survive for another two days.

Kakashi breathes out and pulls his students closer. He allows himself to believe that thought: they can survive for long enough to make it home.

Eventually, he lets go of his students and straightens up. The movement makes him suddenly lightheaded; he braces a hand against a tree and blinks away the spots in his vision. It seems that the soldier pill is starting to wear off.

“All right,” he says, with more air in his voice than he would’ve liked. “It’s getting dark. Naruto, where did you see that cabin? I think it’s best to go there and get some sleep--”

“Not so fast.”

Before Kakashi has finished his sentence, an unfamiliar voice sounds from the shadows.

Team Seven’s reaction is immediate. The genin get into a defensive formation, taking out their kunai. Kakashi shoves back any weakness he was feeling just now. He opens his Sharingan; the effort briefly makes his vision go dark.

“Who’s there?” he barks. His voice, thankfully, sounds stronger than he feels.

A figure, hidden in the long shadow of a tree up until now, steps lazily into view. It’s a woman, maybe ten years older than Kakashi is, with a buzz cut and a scar on her face. She’s wearing an older version of a Konoha flak jacket, her forehead protector tied around her upper arm.

Just briefly, Kakashi feels relieved. She’s from Konoha; she’s an ally. They’ve run into an ally. He almost, almost lets down his guard.

And then he notices that the leaf symbol on her forehead protector is scratched out.

The woman – the missing-nin – grins at him. “I think this is my lucky day,” she says. “It’s not every day I randomly stumble across Kakashi of the Sharingan.” There’s a threatening undertone, barely noticeable, to the excitedness in her words. “You’ve got a pretty nice price on your head. If I kill you, I’ll be set for life.”

Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto instinctively step in front of Kakashi. Kakashi half expects them to attack, but they hold back. Sasuke is trembling with rage.

The missing-nin laughs. “Cute,” she says. “You’ve got yourself a gaggle of protective little genin.” Her eyes move from Kakashi’s students to the bandages around his leg. From one weakness to another. Kakashi tries not to show that it makes his blood run cold.

“So,” the missing-nin continues, “I overheard something just now? Something about a leg wound? And it’s infected, too. Ouch. That’s a pretty serious disadvantage in a fight.” She twirls a kunai around her finger. “You know, you kinda wasted your chakra there, Sharingan Shinobi. You didn’t need to send for backup.” Her grin widens. “‘Cause by the time that backup of yours arrives, you’ll be dead.”

Chapter Text

“By the time that backup of yours arrives, you’ll be dead.”

The words roll off the missing-nin’s tongue easily, almost casually. She lets the threat hang in the air for a moment, watches it hit its mark, watches the genin tense up. Naruto’s fist clenches tightly around his kunai. Kakashi is pretty sure that he can hear Sasuke growl through his teeth.

The contrast is striking; Team Seven, ready to react at any sign of danger, and the missing-nin, with her hands in her pockets and a grin on her face. It’s one of the oldest intimidation techniques in the book: facing a fight with indifference suggests skill and experience. It’s a technique that Kakashi has used countless times over the years. If his leg hadn’t been throbbing this bad, maybe he would’ve taken on a similar air of nonchalance.

It’s no use now, though. There’s no point in pretending that this is going to be an effortless fight when it’s so obvious that that’s not true. The soldier pill is wearing off, and he’s getting weaker by the second – and he’s certain that his opponent can tell. After all, he would definitely screw himself over if he made the first move, which means that she has to make the first move, and she’s taking her time.

She clicks her tongue. “You know, I was planning on hiding out here and taking out some teams that came by for the Chuunin Exams. I mean, this is a pretty well-known route towards Konoha. Dozens of people will come through here – no one would notice if a few of them went missing. Not that genin sell for much on the black market, but it’s enough.” She gestures at Team Seven with a kunai in her hand. “This, though... This is much better. I’d have to look up the exact price that’s on your head, Sharingan Shinobi, but the last time I checked, it was a lot.”

“Kill me, then,” Kakashi replies harshly, “if you want to kill me so badly. Stop stalling for time.” He’s trying to provoke the missing-nin, and he hopes that his students understand that. He has no intention of dying on them. He just needs this fight to start already, now that the last of the soldier pill is still in his system. “I bet you’re just scared to make the first move.”

The missing-nin throws her head back and laughs. “Scared? Of you and your screwed-up leg and your tiny-little genin?” she asks. “We both know that making the first move would be a death sentence for you. So I’m going to stall for as long as I like. It’s funny to see those genin of yours freak out on the inside.”

Naruto’s fingers turn white around the hilt of his kunai. From the corner of his eye, Kakashi can see Sakura sign around her kunai; an ANBU hand sign, subtle but clearly aimed at him. “Do we run?” she signs.

As smart as the suggestion is, running is not an option for Kakashi. Pain is crawling up his leg, along with a familiar weakness that tells him that putting weight on his leg is a one-way ticket to the ground. He can’t run, no matter how badly he wants to. “No,” he signs back, and he adds: “You three could.”

Even before Sakura replies, he already knows what her answer will be: “Never.” Despite everything, he almost feels proud.

Kakashi turns his attention back to the missing-nin and searches for something, anything, that he could use to provoke her into attacking him. He’s normally much better at noticing stuff like that, but his fever and his increasing pain make it hard to think.

There’s not much to notice about the missing-nin, every weakness neatly tucked away – but she visibly keeps looking away from Kakashi, avoiding direct eye contact. She must’ve read up on the Sharingan. He can use that.

“You do realize that I can see in the dark, right?” he asks, almost casually. “And the sun is setting. During the night, the Sharingan has the upper hand.”

“We can stand here until sunrise, for all I care,” the missing-nin replies, in the same nonchalant tone. “We’re pretty far away from Konoha, so I bet that your backup will take some time to arrive. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

Simultaneously, Naruto and Sasuke glance at Kakashi over their shoulders. They have the same fiery look in their eyes. Kakashi already knows what they’re about to do before they do it, and he tries to make sure that the look he gives in return speaks of approval. They’ve practiced restraint for long enough.

The next moment, Naruto is yelling. “Shut up and fight us already!” he shouts at the missing-nin.

“I’m sick and tired of listening to your yapping!” Sasuke adds. “Just get over here and let us beat the Hell out of you!”

The missing-nin laughs again, but this time, she brings her hands together in a sign. Kakashi barely has enough time to recognize it as an Earth ninjutsu before the ground starts cracking underneath his feet.

The fight has started.

“Get into the trees!” Kakashi shouts, already leaping for the nearest treetrunk. Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke climb upwards as well, sticking their feet to the trees with chakra. The ground where they’d just been standing turns into sharp spikes.

Running vertically up a tree puts a lot of pressure on Kakashi’s leg – he tries to make up for it by sticking his hands to the tree as much as he can, but it doesn’t help much. It only takes him a few steps to climb onto a branch, but those few steps are enough to make the edges of his vision go dark.

As he struggles to catch his breath, Kakashi abruptly realizes that the spikes have split Team Seven up. Naruto and Sakura have climbed into the same tree, a few meters to Kakashi’s left, and Sasuke is standing on a branch farther away. Kakashi doesn’t like this distance between them. The last time they split up during a fight, they all ended up injured.

Sakura seems to realize that, too, because she’s already making her way over to Kakashi – but a kunai zips through the space between them, narrowly missing her face. Naruto pulls her back by her good arm.

The missing-nin is rapidly making her way towards them, jumping from tree to tree, across branches. Sasuke and Naruto throw their kunai at her, trying to make her slow down, but she just deflects the blades with her own. She’s not stopping.

Kakashi knows that there is no time to hesitate, so he brings his hands together and signs. A Wind ninjutsu. Powerful enough to knock the missing-nin to the ground and onto the spikes; powerful enough to end this fight before it’s properly begun.

Hopefully the strain on his chakra won’t knock him out immediately.

He finishes the last sign while the missing-nin is in midair, and a strong gust of wind plucks her out of the air. “Grab on to something!” Kakashi yells at his students. They immediately cling to the nearest treetrunk. Kakashi doesn’t let himself give in to his dizziness until he’s certain that they’re all safe.

In between the spots in his vision, he briefly loses sight of the missing-nin. When the wind dies down and he spots her again, his stomach twists uncomfortably.

She’s not lying dead on the ground with a spike through a vital organ like he’d hoped. Instead, she’s clinging to a tree – upside-down and scraped up, but definitely still able to fight. She flips her feet onto a tree next to her and runs upwards again.

Kakashi feels almost like he can’t breathe. He wasted his chakra on a useless move.

Behind him, Naruto shouts loudly, and the next moment, about thirty of his clones springs into existence. They storm the missing-nin all at once, trying to hold her down. She cuts down some of the clones, but they are successful in forcing her back. It’s a mass of orange and loudness and bright chakra. Kakashi can’t quite see what’s going on. He’s sure that it’s disorienting on purpose.

The clones buy Sakura and Sasuke time to get to Kakashi. Sakura gets there first, though she zips past him immediately, moving higher into the tree. “We have a plan,” she signs, and she adds out loud: “Trust us.” Kakashi notices distantly that she’s holding a bundle of rope instead of a kunai.

“I will,” Kakashi replies breathlessly, even though he hates the idea of his genin putting themselves in danger. It’s not like he can protect them right now, anyway.

Sakura nods back at him, and then she disappears in between the leaves above his head, the shadows hiding her away. He can still see her chakra signature, but she’s probably mostly invisible to the naked eye.

Sasuke appears in front of Kakashi, holding kunai in both hands. His back is turned to Kakashi, his eyes focused on what’s going on around them. “Are you okay?” Sasuke asks him, not looking back.

“Not entirely,” Kakashi admits. His leg is starting to give out from underneath him, and the chakra exhaustion is making him lightheaded. He’s not sure he can stand upright for much longer, let alone fight.

“Are you going to pass out?”

“Probably not.” Not yet, at least. If he tried to use jutsu again, that might do the trick, though.

Sasuke makes an approving sound. “Good.” He turns his focus back to the horde of clones in front of them. They’re both quiet, watching Naruto’s clones fight.

Kakashi can feel the strength draining from him with every passing second, even though he’s not even doing anything. He closes his Sharingan, trying to conserve what little chakra he has left. Sasuke has his own Sharingan activated, anyway. It feels vulnerable regardless.

They watch as Naruto’s clones continue to try and fight the missing-nin. Every so often, one of the clones disappears in a cloud of smoke, but the group is so large that it seems almost impossible to fight through them all. They just endlessly keep attacking.

That is, until the group is suddenly hit with confusion. The clones suddenly step back and start shouting. A few of them bring their hands together in a “release” sign, as though scared that they’re under genjutsu. One clone runs back to Sasuke and Kakashi, his expression terrified.

As Kakashi watches, he realizes two things.

One: the clones are confused because the missing-nin is nowhere to be seen.

Two: the clone that’s sprinting towards them is not a clone.

Sasuke stiffens, his eyes locked on the clone. “Hey,” he says, alarm in his tone, “I don’t think that’s--”

And Kakashi has already shoved him out of the way, blocking a stab from a kunai. The clone grins threateningly at him – a very unnatural look on Naruto’s face – before the clone’s face morphs back into the missing-nin’s face, the henge dispelled.

“It’s a shame you saw through that,” she says. “It would’ve been so funny if you believed that you were killed by one of your precious genin.” She slashes her kunai at him again; he blocks it again. “Not that it matters. I can kill you whether I wear your student’s face or not.”

“Like Hell you will!” Sasuke throws himself at the missing-nin, but she throws him off her with a single powerful swing of her arm. Sasuke lands in a tree a couple of meters away, snarling. He throws a couple of shuriken at her, but she blocks them all.

Naruto’s clones have caught up with them by now, all of them swearing and shouting. They grab the missing-nin’s arms and legs, trying to restrain her. She’s stronger than them, though, and she fights off the clones, making them disappear in clouds of smoke. Only the real Naruto remains, struggling to keep his grip on the missing-nin’s wrists. Despite his efforts, she manages to get her hands together and sign.

The next moment, Naruto is holding on to a log of wood.

A Substitution jutsu, Kakashi realizes urgently. The missing-nin has disappeared from his field of vision. He can predict that an attack from behind is coming.

Before he manages to convince his exhausted body to turn around, though, it’s already too late.

A powerful kick slams into the back of his right knee.

The sensation of something ripping apart ripples through Kakashi’s leg – it’s a horrible feeling, but Kakashi’s alarm is immediately overshadowed by the pain, white-hot and all-consuming. He wants to cry out, but he can’t. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out, no air goes in. He can’t breathe.

By some stroke of absolute miracle, he retains the clarity of mind to see the next attack coming. When the missing-nin moves to plunge a kunai into his back, Kakashi turns around and blocks the attack. He strains against the force of the blow, forcing himself to stay on his feet. The tip of the missing-nin’s kunai lightly scrapes against the center of his chest, tearing at the fabric of his tank top – he curses the fact that he took off his flak jacket.

He wraps both hands around his kunai and pushes back against the missing-nin’s weapon, ignoring the fact that the effort makes his vision darken. He has to keep pushing back. If he doesn’t, he’ll be killed. He can’t be killed, not here, not now. His students are all watching. If he died, he would scar them beyond repair.

Fueled by his determination, he pushes the missing-nin back a little. She pushes back – until suddenly she doesn’t.

She steps back, and Kakashi’s own force throws him off balance. His useless right leg isn’t equipped to let him regain his balance. He’s too weak to use his chakra to stick himself to the tree.

He falls out of the tree, plummeting towards the spikes on the ground.

Naruto and Sasuke react quickly, reaching for Kakashi’s left leg, but they’re not quick enough to catch him. Through the fogginess in his head, Kakashi forces himself to think, to act. He clasps his hands together and signs. Just in time, the spikes on the ground change back into a flat surface.

Kakashi doesn’t land on spikes, but his landing is still anything but soft. His shoulder collides with the ground, hard. He rolls a couple of times, trying to dispel his momentum. The feeling that something is tearing apart inside his wound worsens – something is wrong, but he doesn’t have time to worry about that now.

As quickly as he can, he scrambles to his feet again. The effort of getting up immediately proves to be too much. Kakashi’s right leg buckles underneath him, unable to support his weight. He drops to his knees, tightly clutching his upper leg. It feels unnaturally warm underneath his hand.

His students notice his struggle, and so does the missing-nin. Naruto and Sasuke hold her back, keeping her away from Kakashi. Sakura drops down from her hiding spot and rushes towards Kakashi; as she runs past her teammates, Kakashi sees her sign that “everything is in place”. He notices idly that the fishing net that she was using as a sling is gone.

Naruto and Sasuke chase the missing-nin further away from Kakashi, while Sakura helps him to his feet. “She’s smart,” Sakura says, nodding her chin towards the missing-nin. “We figured that the clones would buy us enough time to set our plan into action, but she’s more slippery than we expected.” She gives Kakashi a wry look. “Sorry. It wasn’t part of our plan to let you get hurt again.”

“Don’t… Don’t apologize,” Kakashi replies, out of breath. “From the looks of it, she’s at least jounin-level, and she’s clearly got a lot of experience. If anything, I’m impressed with how you’ve been holding up so far. The three of you have definitely improved.” His voice is wavering; he’s almost in too much pain to speak, but he needs to say this. If this fight ends up killing him – and with an opponent this strong, it very well might – he at least wants his genin to know that he’s proud of them.

Sakura nods, not looking back at him. “We’ve got this from here on out,” she tells him, and there’s nothing but confidence in her tone. “Sasuke and Naruto just need to get her into position.”

They watch as the missing-nin fights off the boys, forcing them away from her. To Kakashi’s alarm, the missing-nin then jumps down to the ground, once again on Kakashi’s level. Sakura is quiet; Kakashi can’t tell whether this is part of his students’ plan or not. Sasuke and Naruto drop down to the ground as well, though they keep their distance, watching.

The missing-nin grins at Kakashi, her expression confident. Kakashi notices that she’s not even the slightest bit out of breath, while Kakashi is struggling to breathe at all. She’s noticing it, too. “It’s time for you to give up,” she tells him. “It’s obvious that I’m stronger. I’m going to kill you, no matter how hard you or your genin try to stop me. It’s no use resisting.” She stares Sakura straight in the eyes, taking a step forwards. “You hear that, genin? I’m going to kill your sensei, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me--”

And the next moment, the missing-nin flies up into the air, kicking and yelling, tangled in a fishing net.

It takes Kakashi’s sluggish mind a second or two to process what happened. The missing-nin stepped right into a trap. A trap that the genin set while she was distracted.

“We got her!” Naruto shouts, high-fiveing Sasuke. He yells up at the squirming missing-nin; “That’s what you get for underestimating us!”

Sakura gives Kakashi a proud grin. “The plan was Naruto’s idea,” she says, “though the trap was my handiwork. Pretty good, right?”

“You did well,” Kakashi tells her, thoroughly baffled. His students came up with this strategy in the middle of a fight, and they executed it successfully. More than that, they executed their plan successfully and they all made it out unscathed. They’ve really come a long way.

“Right,” Sasuke says, readying his kunai. “Now all that’s left to do is to finish the job.”

Naruto’s expression hardens, and so does Sakura’s. Sasuke’s face is carefully neutral, but there’s hesitance in his gaze. Kakashi sees their reluctance – and he promptly decides that these kids have seen enough death during this mission.

“Wait,” he tells his students, and he stands up straight, fixing his eyes on the missing-nin. She’s tangled in the fishing net to the point that she can’t move. Now that she has no way of turning her head, it’s not difficult to catch her gaze.

With the small amount of chakra that he has left, Kakashi puts the missing-nin under genjutsu. She stills, her eyes glazing over. Kakashi exhales shakily, his body feeling cold with chakra exhaustion.

“Cut her down,” he says to Naruto and Sasuke. “She won’t fight anymore.”

Sasuke throws a shuriken and cuts the trap open, making the missing-nin fall to the ground. She hits the ground hard, but she immediately gets up again, seemingly unbothered. Without even looking at Team Seven anymore, she turns around and walks away.

The genin watch her, seeming puzzled. “I put her under genjutsu,” Kakashi explains. He finds that he’s out of breath. “A strong one. She won’t break out of it; she’s not going to bother us anymore.”

Naruto turns around to him – and his eyes immediately widen. There’s something hurt in his gaze. “Kakashi-sensei?” he asks, his voice small.

“The genjutsu won’t hurt her,” Kakashi quickly adds, remembering Naruto’s experience with genjutsu. “Not really. She’s just going to forget that she ever saw us here, that’s all. And she’s going to walk to the nearest village and turn herself in.”

Naruto shakes his head, a hasty movement. “No, that’s not-- I’m not worried about the genjutsu, it’s just that--”

“Kakashi-sensei.” That’s Sakura’s voice, flat with shock. “Kakashi-sensei, you’re bleeding.”

Still hazy, Kakashi looks down.

His right pant leg is soaked with blood.

Chapter Text

Blood drips onto the ground, a soft sound in the post-battle quiet.

Team Seven watches numbly as blood runs down Kakashi’s right leg, soaking the fabric of his pants and the ground underneath his feet in red. Sakura is so stunned that she can’t speak, can’t move. Kakashi is bleeding. The fight opened his wound again. They were all so occupied with fighting, with watching the missing-nin, that none of them even noticed. The genin were so proud of their strategy that they neglected to think about anything else.

Kakashi is still leaning on Sakura’s shoulder; his hand tightens around her shoulder. He presses his other hand against his leg. “The stitches have torn,” he says, his voice carefully level. “It’s bleeding pretty bad.” He swallows difficultly. “I’ll be honest with you… this isn’t good. But we shouldn’t panic. I just need to stop the bleeding. And I’ll probably need your help with that, because I don’t… I don’t think I’m going to stay conscious for much longer.” He sways on his feet – Sasuke and Naruto rush forwards to steady him. “I should-- I should sit down,” Kakashi murmurs, his voice faint.

They carefully lower him down until he’s sitting on the ground; he presses his hands tightly against the wound, trying to stem the bleeding. Blood flows out between his fingers. The wound is too large for just his hands, Sakura realizes, and her mind snaps awake.

“Naruto, help Kakashi-sensei put pressure on the wound!” she says. “Use your jacket! Sasuke, stand guard!”

Sasuke thankfully decides to listen to her; he looks out into the forest, his Sharingan still activated. Naruto quickly takes off his jacket and kneels down next to Kakashi. He folds the jacket over the cut, over Kakashi’s hands, and presses it against the cut with both his hands. He pushes down on the wound as hard as he can, his brow furrowed with a quiet determination.

Sakura takes off her backpack and props it underneath Kakashi’s leg – elevating the wound should help it stop bleeding. She presses down on the wound with her good hand, next to Naruto’s hands. Their three hands are enough to put pressure on the entire wound, although it’s only barely enough.

“You can let go, Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura says, talking louder so that he can hear her; he’s closed his Sharingan. “You should lie down. That’ll help stop the bleeding faster.”

“I know,” Kakashi says, and he slowly pulls his hands back from the wound. His hands are covered in blood and visibly shaking.

As Kakashi lowers himself to the ground, Sakura and Naruto adjust their hands to apply direct pressure to the wound. Kakashi chokes out a groan.

Sakura winces in sympathy-pain. “Sorry.”

Kakashi shakes his head, a hurried movement. “Don’t apologize,” he replies through clenched jaws. “I can… I can handle the pain. Just don’t stop applying pressure, no matter what. If you let go, I’ll--”

He cuts himself off with a wince. Naruto finishes his sentence for him, his voice faint. “If we let go, you’ll bleed out,” he says. “We know. We won’t let that happen.”

“Good. Thanks.” Kakashi exhales shakily. His right eye slips shut; for a long, awful moment, Sakura fears that he’s fainted, but then, he talks again. “I’m going to try to slow down my chakra flow,” he says. “That should help stop the bleeding, but I don’t know if I have enough chakra left to do it. I might pass out. If that happens, just-- remember what we talked about, okay?”

“Okay.” They’ve discussed this exact scenario before, and Sakura remembers every word of it, even though it feels like that conversation happened centuries ago. She remembers what they agreed to do in a situation like this: they have to apply pressure like their lives depend on it. Because Kakashi’s life does depend on it. And if just pressure isn’t enough, they’ll have to pack gauze into the wound and hope that that stops the bleeding. And if that isn’t enough…

Well, she’ll just have to hope that it’ll be enough.

Kakashi nods back at her and exhales another slow breath. It takes a while, but Sakura soon notices that the bleeding is slowing down a little; the blood doesn’t soak through Naruto’s jacket as quickly, anymore. She almost dares to feel a little optimistic. Maybe Kakashi won’t bleed to death right underneath their hands.

But then, Kakashi’s eye snaps open. To Sakura’s horror, blood starts flowing from the wound again. Kakashi grimaces. “Can’t do it,” he pants. There’s something terrifyingly hazy in his gaze. “I don’t… I don’t have enough chakra left to stop the bleeding.”

Sakura can feel the blood seep through the fabric, once again at an alarming speed. It starts dripping onto the ground. Kakashi has started breathing faster, his chest hitching with shudders of pain.

Kakashi can’t lose much more blood than he already has, Sakura realizes. She shares a panicked look with Naruto.

“This isn’t working,” she says. “We have to pack gauze into the wound, quickly. Sasuke, can you get the first-aid kit?”

“Good call,” Kakashi says weakly. “First-aid kit’s in my backpack.”

Sasuke pulls the first-aid kit from Kakashi’s backpack and puts it on the ground next to Sakura. “I can help,” Sasuke says. His face is pale.

Sakura hesitates, but she decides it’s worth the risk. “We could use an extra set of hands,” she replies with a nod, shifting to make room for Sasuke.

Sasuke kneels down next to her and clicks open the first-aid kit. Sakura takes a breath, trying to stay calm. She can’t expect Kakashi to give instructions in his condition. Sakura has read a lot about medical stuff, and they all know that – Naruto and Sasuke are expecting her to know what to do. The responsibility weighs heavy on her shoulders. She cannot lose her cool, no matter what.

“On the count of three, we’ll let go of the wound and start putting gauze into it,” she says to her teammates. “Put in as much gauze as possible, as quickly as possible. The goal is to pack the gauze as tightly into the wound as we can, to apply pressure directly to the ends of the torn blood vessels.”

Naruto nods, clenching his jaws. He’s been quiet. Sakura can tell that he’s terrified. She wishes she could tell him that things are going to be okay, but she can’t know that for certain.

“Ready?” she asks.

“Ready,” echo Naruto and Sasuke.

“Ready,” Kakashi says, his voice faint.

Sakura nods. “One, two, three--”

She lifts her hand from the wound and pulls Naruto’s jacket aside. Sasuke pulls out a kunai and quickly cuts through the bandages around the wound. They remove the soaked bandages, revealing the wound. For a brief and terrifying moment, the cut bleeds freely.

Sakura only catches a glimpse of torn stitches and raw, swollen skin before she grabs a handful of gauze pads and presses them into the wound. Naruto and Sasuke follow her example; they’re both able to use both of their hands, so they’re quicker than she is. It doesn’t take the three of them long to pack the entire wound full with gauze.

Kakashi digs the heel of his good foot into the ground, his hands balling into fists. A choked sound escapes from his throat as his head jerks to the side in pain. Sakura murmurs an apology as she stuffs the last piece of gauze into the cut.

“Done,” she says. “Okay, we’re done. Everyone, keep pressure on the wound. It should be easier to stop the bleeding, now.”

“You okay, sensei?” Naruto asks Kakashi, who is breathing hard. “That looks like it hurt.”

“I was prepared for it,” Kakashi replies, his eyes squeezed shut tightly. “And you were quick about it, so that’s good. You’re doing good.”

“We’re doing our best,” Sakura says. Something pessimistic inside her wonders if their best will be enough, but she can’t afford to focus on that right now. She makes eye contact with Naruto and Sasuke. “Keep applying pressure, as much as you can,” she tells them. “Hopefully this’ll be enough to stop the bleeding. Kakashi-sensei, please try to stay awake, if you can.”

“Copy that,” Kakashi replies, giving them a thumbs-up. His hand trembles when he lowers it again. He huffs a wry laugh. “Sorry about all of this,” he says. “This was supposed to be a C-rank mission, but it’s starting to look more and more like medical-nin training.”

“Don’t apologize,” Sasuke grumbles. “It’s just stupid. Do you really think that we mind saving your life? Because we don’t.”

“And if we decide to become medical-nin, we’ll already have a little bit of experience,” Sakura adds faintly.

Kakashi shrugs, immediately wincing. “I guess that’s true.” He lowers his head to the ground. His chest is still rising and falling rapidly. It’s a clear reaction to either blood loss, pain, or fear. Sakura doesn’t know which of those options is worse.

They’re all silent for a while, giving Kakashi a chance to catch his breath. Sakura keeps glancing at his face, making sure that he’s still conscious. Even though his eyes are closed, it’s clear that he’s still awake; if he had fainted, that awful grimace would’ve disappeared from his face.

Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke keep applying pressure to the wound, leaning their entire weight onto it. A minute passes, then two minutes. Kakashi’s breathing starts to slow down. The silence eases everyone’s minds a little.

And then, Naruto turns to Sakura with wide, panicked eyes. “It’s still bleeding,” he says, his voice flat with shock. He looks nauseous. “The wound bled through the gauze just now.”

Sakura can feel it too, now; the warmth of new blood underneath her hand. Something inside her chest goes cold. The bleeding hasn’t stopped, despite their efforts. Kakashi is still losing blood.

She shares a look with Naruto and Sasuke, who both look about as panicked as she feels. Kakashi has opened his eye again and is watching them silently. There’s something very vulnerable in his gaze, buried under layers of stoicism and pain.

“Give it a few more minutes,” he says when nobody speaks. His voice is hoarse. “Continue to keep pressure on the wound for just a few more minutes. Maybe the bleeding will stop on its own.”

It’s difficult to have faith in that. Sakura nods anyway. She turns to Naruto. “Put your jacket over the wound again,” she tells him. “It’ll help absorb some of the blood.”

“There’s two jounin sweaters in my backpack,” Kakashi adds quietly. “You can use those, too.”

Sasuke quickly gets up to grab the sweaters – the three of them fold the two sweaters and Naruto’s jacket over the cut and press down on the fabric. Kakashi groans through his clenched teeth and turns away. Naruto apologizes quietly, his face sheet-white.

The silence returns, except it’s now filled with anxiety instead of calmness. Sakura’s mind is racing. She’d love to hold on to what little optimism she still has, but she knows that pressure won’t be enough to staunch Kakashi’s bleeding. The wound is already bleeding through the fabric of Naruto’s jacket. It’s not stopping.

Against her will, she starts to wonder what will happen if they can’t stop the bleeding. Logically, she knows what will happen; she knows how bleeding out works. The average adult human body contains about five liters of blood. If you lose more than half of that, you die. You lose consciousness and your organs shut down and you die.

Sakura knows the facts, but emotionally, it doesn’t make any sense to her. Kakashi can’t die here. He can’t leave them alone. They can’t return to Konoha without him. They can’t go back and tell their village that they let Hatake Kakashi, hero of the Leaf, die.

She tries to force those thoughts from her head. None of that is going to happen. They will stop the bleeding.

But they’re almost out of options. Pressure clearly isn’t working. Kakashi tried to stop the bleeding by slowing down his chakra flow, but he’s too weak for that. A tourniquet wouldn’t work either, because they’d have to apply it either on top of the wound or on a joint, which isn’t possible. Not to mention that Kakashi could lose his leg if they tried.

The possibility of cauterization weighs heavy on Sakura’s mind. It looks more and more like it’s their only option, and Sakura hates it. It’s too risky. They’d have to put Kakashi’s body through even more stress, while he’s already exhausted and sick and has lost a lot of blood.

Worse than that, though, is the fact that cauterization would be complete and utter agony. The ends of the bleeding blood vessels would need to be burned to make the bleeding stop. Practically, that means that they’d have to get something metal to red-hot temperatures and use it to burn Kakashi until his leg stops bleeding. He’d end up with a huge second-degree burn on his upper leg, which would be horrendously painful, and that’s the best case scenario. In the worst case scenario, he gets burned too badly and the nerves in his leg could end up permanently damaged. Depending on how serious the nerve damage is, that could be a career-ending injury.

She glances at Kakashi, who is already balling his fists and digging the heel of his good foot into the ground. He’s already in so much pain. They can’t put him through even more.

No one says anything as they wait for the bleeding to miraculously stop. Kakashi visibly tries to slow down his breathing, his chest rising in an unnaturally slow rhythm. It makes sense; a fast heart rate will only make him bleed out faster. Despite his efforts to slow down the bleeding, Sakura can feel the fabric underneath her hands grow warm. Kakashi has at this point bled through gauze, Naruto’s jacket, and two jounin sweaters.

Three minutes pass, and the stain of blood on the last jounin sweater doesn’t stop growing bigger. Sluggishly, Kakashi slowly opens his eye. He looks up at his students, his gaze flat. “The bleeding isn’t stopping,” he says, “is it?”

Sakura swallows difficultly. “No,” she replies. “It isn’t.” The backs of her eyes sting. She wishes she could cry, but she can’t let herself do that. “What do we do?”

Kakashi visibly clenches his jaws underneath his mask. Sakura already knows what he’s going to say before he says it.

“The wound needs to be cauterized,” he says. “We’ve tried everything else. There’s no other way.”

A panicked noise escapes from Sakura’s throat. “But what’s going to happen to the infection?” she asks. “Won’t it-- Isn’t it going to--” Sakura breaks off her sentence with a grimace. If they burned the wound shut, they would essentially be trapping the bacteria under Kakashi’s skin. That can’t be a good thing.

Kakashi shakes his head, a jerking motion. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Maybe the bleeding has washed the infection out. That’s how it works with poison sometimes, but I don’t know about infections. If I’m wrong, then burning the wound shut might make it worse. I don’t know – I’m not a medical-nin, I don’t know.” His voice breaks; Sakura realizes abruptly that he’s just as terrified as they are.

“So it’s a gamble, then,” Sasuke says, frowning. “If we burn the wound shut, you could die of sepsis.”

“If we don’t burn the wound shut, I’ll bleed out. And soon, too.” Kakashi’s voice is weak, but his tone is pragmatic. “We have to cauterize it. The infection could get worse afterwards, but at least I’ll have more time. It’s our best shot.” There’s a spark of bitter determination in his tone. “Naruto, make some clones and have them gather firewood. Sasuke, you’re good at building fires; get a fire going. I’m going to need a kunai and something to bite down on.”

Naruto carefully lifts his hands from the wound – Sakura and Sasuke apply pressure in his place – and signs to make five clones. They quickly run off to find wood. Once Naruto is applying pressure to the wound again, Sasuke gets up to gather wood as well. Naruto and Sakura shift to fill the empty space.

Kakashi briefly closes his eyes, and then he pushes himself up on his elbows. It’s clear that it takes him far too much effort, judging by the grimace on his face and the barely-stifled groans. Sakura wishes she could help him – either help him or stop him – but she can’t risk letting go of the wound.

Naruto watches Kakashi struggle, looking as though he’s in pain himself. “What are you doing?” Naruto asks him.

Kakashi hauls himself into a sitting position, panting. With twitching movements, he draws his left knee up to his face and leans his forehead against it. He’s trembling all over, but when he speaks, his voice is strong. “I’m going to cauterize the wound.”

Sasuke scoffs, gesturing broadly at Kakashi with a piece of firewood. “Don’t you see the way you’re shaking?” he asks. “You’d only hurt yourself more.”

Kakashi raises his hand to his face and stares at it, his gaze unfocused. His hand is trembling badly, either from blood loss or from exhaustion. It’s clear that it’s a bad idea to let him do anything that requires precision, let alone something as delicate as burning his own skin shut. He balls his hand into a fist and leans his head against his knee again.

“We’ll do it,” Sakura says when nobody speaks. When she notices the hesitation on her teammates’ faces, she corrects herself: “I’ll do it. I’m good at things that require a lot of control. Leave it to me.”

Kakashi looks at her for a moment. There’s something resigned in his expression. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks her eventually, his voice low and serious. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

Sakura nods. “I know. But I promise I can do it. You can count on me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Kakashi replies. “I meant that this is going to be awful. Under any other circumstances, I would never ask a genin to do this. Or anyone, for that matter. Especially not my own students.” He looks her in the eyes. “So are you sure you want to do this?”

Sakura doesn’t need to give it much thought. As much as the idea of causing Kakashi pain terrifies her, it doesn’t terrify her enough to let him die. It doesn’t terrify her enough to let him try to cauterize his own wound, not when there’s such a high chance that he’d only end up hurting himself more. Even if he’ll forever associate Sakura’s face with horrifying pain, that’s fine with her, as long as he survives.

“No matter how awful this is going to be,” she says, the resolve clear in her tone, “it can’t be as awful as letting you bleed out.”

Kakashi visibly chews on his lower lip underneath his mask, an anxious motion. He looks at his shaking hand again, and then back to Sakura. Slowly, he nods. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I’ll walk you through it as well as I can, then.”

Sakura shakes her head. “You don’t have to,” she says. “I know what to do.” She paid attention in class, and she read about cauterization in a couple of her books. She knows what to do. On top of that, Kakashi shouldn’t use his energy to talk more than he already has. He should spare his strength.

Kakashi huffs a laugh, despite everything. “Of course you do. I shouldn’t have expected otherwise.” He lowers himself back to the ground and closes his eyes. His eyelids have turned a color that’s somewhere in between gray and blue, his face ghostly pale. It’s clear that the conversation has tired him out badly.

During the silence, Naruto’s clones return with firewood, and Sasuke uses a Fire ninjutsu to quickly light a fire. He lays a handful of kunai in between the flames. The fire casts harsh shadows in the dimming sunlight, crackling ominously. Sakura stares at the kunai, trying to wrap her head around the fact that she’s going to be holding those kunai in a minute or so, and that she’s going to use them to burn her teacher’s leg. It feels surreal.

Kakashi is staring at the fire, too, his expression unreadable. His hand is curled around a stick that’s lying next to him; one of the clones gave it to him, because he asked for something to bite down on. He keeps tightening his grip on the stick and then loosening it again, his fingers turning white. It’s the only thing about him that shows how scared he is. He has every right to be.

Sasuke kneels down next to the fire, studying the kunai. “They’re starting to turn red at the edges,” he says. “I think they’re almost hot enough.”

Sakura swallows down the anxiety that that statement gives her. “All right,” she says. “Once those kunai are entirely red-hot, we’ll have to act fast. We have to take the gauze out of the wound first. Naruto, you’ll have to keep the cut open after that, so that I can reach the bleeding blood vessels. I’ll burn the blood vessels shut, though the kunai will probably cool off before I can seal the entire wound. Sasuke, you’ll have to hand me a new kunai when that happens.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Kakashi says. “You explained it well, Sakura.” He pauses; his expression is somewhere between somber and apologetic. “You should be prepared for the fact that you’re going to hurt me,” he says, his voice low. “I might pass out, or I might ask you to stop, or I might try to push you away reflexively. It’s probably for the best if the clones hold me down. I don’t want to hurt you by accident.” He pauses. “At any rate, whatever happens, don’t stop cauterizing the wound. Not even if I ask you to. You’re going to hurt me, but that’s okay. I much prefer it over bleeding out.”

The rest of Team Seven nods silently. The reality of the situation hits them once more.

Kakashi smiles at them. “You can do this,” he says. “All you’ll have to do is work as a team, and you’ve gotten pretty good at that lately.”

“’Pretty good’ is an understatement, sensei,” Naruto corrects him. “We’re awesome at working together now.” The optimism in his tone feels a bit forced.

“Yeah. Damn right you are.” Kakashi exhales a shaky breath, his stoic façade slipping. “Listen,” he says. “I have all the faith in the world in you three, but if this doesn’t work…” He swallows difficultly. “If… If I die here today, don’t blame yourselves, okay? You have to accept it and work through it and move on. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. I lost both of my teammates when I was about your age, and I lost my sensei when I was a bit older, and it took me until last week to even consider the possibility of not blaming myself for that. I spent over half of my life trapped in guilt and sadness. I don’t want that for you.”

It’s the most he’s ever told them about his past. A thousand questions present themselves to Sakura’s mind, and it hurts that she may not have the time to ask Kakashi about them. If they fail, this really could be the last time they get to talk to him.

“We’ll try,” she replies, even though the possibility of losing Kakashi is so profoundly awful that she can barely even imagine it. Team Seven has only been a team for a couple of weeks, but Sakura had somehow thought that they’d be together for the rest of her life. It feels like they’ve already been together for a lifetime; the four of them have been through so much together. “We’ll try, although we would really miss you, sensei. So we’re going to do our absolute best to keep you alive.”

Kakashi smiles and closes his eye. “Thank you. I’m grateful.”

Their conversation is interrupted by Sasuke clearing his throat. “The kunai are ready,” he says. “It’s time.”

Team Seven collectively tenses up, just for a split second, before they swallow their anxiety and get into position. Two of Naruto’s clones hold Kakashi’s arms to the ground and two more hold down his legs, and the fifth clone stands guard. Naruto himself stays kneeling on the ground next to Sakura, both of them still applying pressure to the wound. Kakashi has the stick between his teeth; he doesn’t seem to care that his teammates can see his face. Sakura could’ve easily snuck a peek at his face, but that thought isn’t on her mind, nor would it have given her any satisfaction. She looks away. She notices that Naruto and Sasuke do the same thing.

Sasuke retrieves a kunai from the fire; the hilt is almost too hot to touch, so he borrows one of Kakashi’s gloves so that he won’t burn his hand on the metal. Sakura wears the other glove. It’s warm and sticky with blood. When Sasuke hands her the red-hot kunai, some blood squeezes from the glove and runs down the metal, immediately starting to boil. Sakura forces her eyes away from the bubbling liquid, forces herself calm. “Ready?” she asks.

“Ready,” Naruto and Sasuke reply, faintly.

“Do it,” Kakashi grits out around the stick in his mouth.

As quickly as they can, Sasuke and Naruto remove the gauze from the wound. Once again, Sakura is faced with the wound, still bleeding, still red and swollen and raw-looking. Self-doubt rears its ugly head, though Sakura doesn’t let herself slip into insecurity. She can do this. She has to do this. If she doesn’t, Kakashi will die.

The red-hot kunai makes contact with Kakashi’s skin. There’s a faint sizzling sound, followed by the nauseating smell of burning flesh.

Kakashi bites down on the stick and screams.

Chapter Text

It turns out that cauterizing a wound isn’t nearly as difficult as Sakura expected.

It’s all a matter of speed and precision, and she is skilled at both. All she has to do, is press the red-hot kunai against the wound and then remove the kunai again before Kakashi’s skin burns too badly. The kunai is too small to sear the entire wound closed in one go, so she has to repeat this process a couple of times, burning a couple of centimeters of skin at a time. The quicker she works, the less time Kakashi has to be in pain, so Sakura needs to work as quickly as she can.

The steps are clear; all Sakura has to do, is follow them. Shinobi life, she’s realized, doesn’t often come with a step-by-step guide. Compared to battle, this isn’t difficult at all.

What’s truly difficult about all of this, is the knowledge that even when Sakura does everything perfectly, she’ll still cause Kakashi unbearable pain.

The first time the kunai makes contact with Kakashi’s skin, Kakashi cries out, and Sakura almost drops her kunai. She’d half expected that Kakashi would be silent. He’d been bearing all of his pain with a quiet stoicism so far – at worst, Sakura had expected him to bear this with a groan, maybe a grimace. At absolute worst, she’d expected him to simply faint.

But instead, he screams, the sound muffled behind the stick that he’s biting down on. The sound is raw and rasping, like it’s tearing right through his vocal chords.

Sakura instinctively pulls back, suddenly lightheaded. Her eyes are fixed on the fresh burn on Kakashi’s leg; a red and moist patch of skin, about the size of the kunai’s blade, and blistering grotesquely. The torn stitches stick from the burned skin haphazardly. It’s a second-degree burn – the most painful type of burn. Sakura has just given her teacher a second-degree burn.

Her gaze automatically flickers over to Kakashi’s face, looking for any indication of what she’s supposed to do. She sees his face, but she doesn’t register any of his features; just the tension in his jaw, the grimace around his mouth.

Kakashi looks back at her, his left eye squeezed shut and his right eye barely open. He doesn’t speak, only gives her a shaky nod – and Sakura realizes that she already knew what she’s supposed to do. She promised she wouldn’t stop cauterizing the wound, no matter what. She promised she wouldn’t let Kakashi bleed out.

So she turns her attention back to the wound, takes a breath, and presses the red-hot metal against the next part of Kakashi’s skin. Blood bubbles, and skin blisters, and Kakashi thrashes against the grip of the clones that hold him down. The clones that hold down his legs almost lose their grip. Sasuke scrambles up and helps them. Even with five people holding him down, Kakashi is almost too strong.

Sakura forces herself not to pay it any mind. She forces the constant awareness that Kakashi is in horrifying pain to the back of her mind. Because, little by little, the bleeding is stopping. There is no blood leaking from the burned skin. It’s awful, but it’s working.

About halfway through, the kunai has cooled off too much to burn, and Sasuke gets her a new kunai from the fire. It gives Team Seven a few seconds to catch their breaths, though that’s not necessarily a good thing. Those few seconds are enough for Kakashi to get used to the absence of acute pain – and when Sakura continues burning his wound shut, he cries out again, his voice breaking. It sounds far too much like a sob.

“We’re halfway through,” Sakura hears herself say. She doesn’t consciously make the decision to speak, but trying to reassure Kakashi seems like the only right thing to do. “I’m almost done. Just hold on a bit longer.”

“It’s going to be okay, sensei,” Naruto adds. “You’re not bleeding as much anymore. It’s working.”

“You can survive this,” Sasuke murmurs.

Kakashi doesn’t react; Sakura can only hope that he heard them, and that their attempts at reassuring him helped. For now, all she can do is keep going, keep cauterizing the wound. She clings to her own words: they’re halfway through, she’s almost done. Kakashi only needs to bear this pain for a little while longer.

She works as quickly as she can, with an almost trance-like focus, an unparalleled precision. Her hand doesn’t shake. Her mind doesn’t wander. She doesn’t move her eyes from her work until the entire wound is sealed, the cut replaced by a large burn, the skin red and blistering and not bleeding anymore.

Once she’s finished, Sakura sits back, dropping the kunai on the ground. The hilt of the kunai has left a thin line of stinging skin on the palm of her hand; the glove that she’s wearing is mostly heat resistant, but the metal has burned her hand through the glove regardless. She automatically cradles her hand to her chest. She’s badly out of breath, though she hadn’t noticed before.

Her eyes feel dry; she blinks a couple of times. Now that her focus is wavering, she realizes how quiet it is. Kakashi stopped screaming. For a split second, she fears that he’s dead – that she let him die – but his chest wouldn’t be heaving like this if he were dead. He simply passed out at some point, though Sakura hadn’t noticed it happening.

The clones and Sasuke are still holding Kakashi down. Naruto is holding down Kakashi’s right leg as well; it was his task to hold the wound open, but he doesn’t need to do that anymore. They’re all looking at Sakura expectantly, and she clears her throat.

“That was it,” she says belatedly. “The wound is closed.”

Her teammates visibly relax; Sasuke lets go of Kakashi and steps back. As Naruto brings his hands together and dispels his clones, Sasuke kneels down next to Kakashi’s face and carefully takes the stick from his mouth. Sasuke quietly pulls the mask over Kakashi’s face again.

Sakura clears her throat again, trying to keep her voice from cracking. “We should dress the burn before he comes to,” she says. She’d meant to help her teammates take care of the burn, but she finds that she’s too dazed to move. She can’t focus her eyes, and her ears are ringing.

Naruto turns towards her, moving to put a hand on her shoulder, but Sasuke stops him. “Leave her be for a bit,” Sasuke tells him. “The stress probably got to her.”

Sakura nods – she can’t disagree – and she moves aside so that Sasuke and Naruto can take care of Kakashi’s leg. Her mind feels overfull, and she can’t quite catch her breath. This was probably the most stressful experience of her life, and that includes everything that happened during this mission. Out of all the awful things that she’s experienced during this mission, hearing Kakashi scream was by far the worst.

The next time she looks at Kakashi, the burn on his leg has been neatly covered in bandages, though Sakura doesn’t recall watching her teammates work. The sterile white looks out of place in the middle of the bloody mess that Kakashi’s leg has become.

Naruto and Sasuke quietly put the first-aid supplies back into the first-aid kit. As soon as the box clicks closed, Naruto stumbles to the side and squeezes his eyes shut. He’s breathing heavily.

Sakura watches him as he leans his hands on his knees and tries to catch his breath. He’s shaking all over. “Are you okay?” she calls out to him.

Naruto nods, though he seems hesitant. “I’m all right. I’d just never seen that much blood up close before.”

“I have,” Sasuke murmurs. “And I hoped that I never would again.” He doesn’t elaborate, but it’s clear that he’s talking about his family. Sakura wonders what’s going on inside his head right now. Probably something dark. Sakura considers comforting him, but she knows that that wouldn’t help. If she tried to comfort him, he’d probably just find that patronizing.

They sit in silence for a while, all of them trying to calm down. It’s gotten dark, Sakura notices; the sun set while she wasn’t paying attention. The fire provides some light, a small patch of warm light in the middle of the darkness. The soft crackling of the fire is the only sound in the silence – until that silence is broken by a gasp and a sharp groan.

Kakashi bolts upright, immediately flinching. Naruto quickly kneels next to him and lays a hand on his shoulder, helping him sit up.

There’s a moment of tense silence before Kakashi gathers the breath to speak. “Did- Did you manage to do it?” he asks, looking up at Sakura. His hand hovers above the bandages, though he doesn’t touch his leg. “Did you stop the bleeding?”

Sakura nods. Despite everything, there’s a swell of pride in her chest. “Yeah. We stopped the bleeding.”

Kakashi exhales a long, relieved sigh, and he closes his eyes again. “Good,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

Naruto huffs a nervous laugh. “We really thought we were going to lose you, sensei,” he says. “That was a little too close.”

Kakashi smiles, his eyes still closed. “I won’t lie, I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to make it, either,” he replies. “But the three of you did really well. I’m sorry for scaring you like that.”

“It doesn’t matter how badly you scared us,” Sasuke says bluntly. “What matters is that you made it out alive in the end.” He gets up and rolls his shoulders. “We should move,” he continues. “Naruto, take us to that cabin that you saw. I don’t want to sit unprotected in the middle of the woods for a second longer.”

Kakashi nods. “Yeah. I can’t disagree with that.” He starts to push himself upright, though he immediately falls back down to the ground. It seems that the blood loss really took its toll on him. The fact that the soldier pill wore off probably doesn’t help, either.

The effort of trying to get up jolts the burn on his leg; Kakashi’s hand curls into a fist next to his leg, and he hisses through his teeth. “Argh--”

“Does it hurt?” Sakura asks quietly. She can’t help but feel guilty – she’s the one that caused this pain.

Kakashi nods once, shakily. “It hurts,” he gasps out, “but that’s a good thing. It means that there isn’t much nerve damage. Or any at all.” He sucks in a breath. “So it’s all right. I’m just really glad that I’m alive enough to feel this pain. It could’ve been so much worse.”

As Kakashi speaks, Naruto summons some clones again, and they carefully lift Kakashi off the ground. The real Naruto beckons for the rest of the team to follow him. “I’ll get us to that cabin,” he says. “I remember where it is. Just follow me.”

Sasuke quickly stomps out the fire, though he takes one piece of firewood with him to light their way. Sakura gets to her feet, and Team Seven leaves the glade behind. Sakura looks over her shoulder once more, at the large, dark stain of blood on the ground. Kakashi lost so much blood. They could’ve very well lost him back there. The thought makes Sakura feel grateful and terrified in equal amounts.

Naruto leads them to the cabin through the darkness. He was right, the cabin looks abandoned, though Sasuke and Sakura check thoroughly anyway, just to be safe – they’ve learned at this point to look underneath the underneath. Once they’ve confirmed that there’s truly nobody home, they go inside. The door isn’t locked.

Sasuke lights up the cabin with the piece of firewood that he brought. The cabin consists of only a single room, with nothing but a rickety table and a couple of mostly-empty cabinets in it. There’s a futon in the middle of the floor.

Everything is coated in a thick layer of dust; Naruto sneezes loudly as soon as he enters, and a startled spider hurries away from him across the floor. The blanket on the futon is the only thing that isn’t covered in dust – it’s Sakura’s guess that the missing-nin may have been using this place as a hiding spot. Not that that matters. That woman is not going to come back.

The clones lower Kakashi onto the futon; he murmurs a “thanks”, and the clones disperse quickly afterwards. Kakashi hauls himself upright and shakily takes off his sandals, setting them to the side. He lays down his weapons pouch and his headband next to his sandals. He’s wearing only his tank top and his pants, now. Without the weapons and the bulky uniform, he somehow looks small. Vulnerable.

With a sigh, Kakashi lowers his head onto the futon and pulls the blanket over himself. The blood loss has left him looking ghostly pale. The lines of pain around his eyes don’t disappear.

“Get some rest,” Sakura tells him, even though he was probably already planning on doing that anyway. “We’ll stand watch.”

Kakashi nods. “Yeah. All right.” His eye slips shut. “Wake me up if something happens, okay?”

“We will,” Sakura replies, but he’s already drifted off.

During the hours after that, Team Seven works on securing the cabin. Sasuke stands guard, because his Sharingan allow him to see in the dark. Sakura and Naruto set a couple of traps around the cabin; they work with what little supplies they have left and what they can find inside the cabin. Most of the traps are traps meant for catching people, which is weird, because those aren’t traps that Naruto is used to making. He’s not used to using his traps to hurt people. Still, it’s a good way to keep people from getting inside. It’s a good way to keep his team safe.

He and Sakura craft the snares inside the cabin, next to Kakashi, who is sleeping. Sakura burned her hand a little when she was closing Kakashi’s wound, so it’s probably super uncomfortable for her to help make the traps, but she insists on helping anyway. She says she doesn’t want to sit around doing nothing.

Their work is illuminated by candlelight; the cabin doesn’t have any electricity. Naruto found the candles in the back of a cabinet somewhere. It’s nice to have some light, though the flickering shadows make Naruto jumpy. He’s almost glad when he gets to step out into the dark forest to set up the traps. At least in the darkness, the light can’t play tricks on him.

Sakura stays behind to keep an eye on Kakashi, and Naruto uses his clones to set the traps. He’s been summoning a lot of clones these past few days, and it’s pretty tiring. By the time all the traps are set and he’s returned to the cabin, his head and his limbs have started feeling annoyingly achy.

Sakura is still sitting beside Kakashi’s futon when Naruto returns. She gives him a little wave when he walks into the room, and he sits down next to her. “I’ve set the traps,” Naruto tells her. “We should be safe here.”

“Good,” Sakura replies, and she immediately yawns.

“Tired?” Naruto asks her, though he doesn’t wait for her to answer; she’d probably say that she’s fine, anyway. “I can watch over Kakashi-sensei for a while, you know. You should get some sleep.”

Sakura hesitates, but then she nods. “Okay.”

She sits with her back against one of the walls, her broken arm resting on her stomach and her burned hand resting on her lap. She falls asleep almost immediately. Naruto doesn’t blame her; she saved Kakashi’s life today. Naruto would be pretty wiped out, too, if he were in her shoes.

The fact that Sakura has gone to sleep abruptly leaves Naruto with absolutely nothing to do, and he finds that he doesn’t like that at all. He’s already bad at sitting still on a good day, and this is very much not a good day. He offered to watch over Kakashi, but he’s far too restless for that.

So instead of sitting still, he ends up cleaning the cabin. He doesn’t like cleaning, but at least it gives him something to do. He finds that it’s nice to rid the cabin of its thick blanket of dust – the dust makes his nose itch, and if Team Seven has to wait here for the next two days, Naruto would prefer to wait without his nose itching the whole time.

Cleaning is an effective way of keeping Naruto from having to sit still – and when the cabin is so spotless that it stops being effective, he takes over guard duty from Sasuke. He feels a bit guilty for not wanting to watch over Kakashi, but it feels far too much like doing nothing. He can’t do nothing right now. He feels like he’d go crazy.

The night passes quietly, and before Naruto knows it, the sky has started to light up again. The sky is gray and cloudy; it’ll probably rain later. Naruto feels distantly glad that they’ve got a roof over their heads.

Sakura calls from inside the cabin, asking if he’s coming to eat breakfast; he leaves a clone outside and goes back into the cabin. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was, though in hindsight it makes sense: after everything that happened yesterday evening, they forgot to eat dinner. It makes sense that his stomach is grumbling.

So they eat some of the plants that Naruto gathered yesterday. They manage to wake Kakashi up, and he eats breakfast with them, though it seems like he’s forcing himself to eat. He’s too exhausted to properly sit upright, and it seems like he barely has enough energy to chew. He’s quiet, and visibly shivering. When he takes a painkiller from the first-aid kit, his hands shake so badly that he almost drops it.

When Kakashi lies back down on the futon, Naruto notices that his face looks red. Which is strange, because he’d been alarmingly pale since yesterday. “Sensei?” Naruto asks him, his voice small – he has a feeling that the redness in Kakashi’s face is a bad sign. “Are you feeling okay? You look a little feverish.”

Kakashi’s eye widens minutely, and he presses the palm of his hand against his forehead. He sighs when he lowers his hand again. “Yeah, that’s definitely too warm.”

Naruto clenches his jaws. Crap, this can’t be good. Kakashi lost a lot of blood, and he has pretty serious chakra exhaustion; if anything, his temperature should be too low, or that’s what Sakura said at least. The fact that he has a fever anyway probably means that his system is completely out of whack. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” Kakashi tiredly pulls the blanket over himself. “Sometimes people just get fevers because their bodies have been through a lot of stress. Considering everything that happened yesterday, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. Or it’s just the same fever that I’ve had for the past week, and it was just briefly gone because the blood loss and the chakra exhaustion messed with my body temperature.” Something darkens in his gaze, his optimism briefly lost. “Or…”

“Or you could be dying of sepsis,” Sasuke finishes his sentence for him. His tone is curt, though Naruto knows him well enough by now to sense the absence of anger in his words; he’s just anxious.

“It’s a possibility.” Kakashi shrugs. “But there’s nothing we can do about it, anyway. So whatever is going on, I’ll just have to hold on until help arrives.” He looks at his students through his eyelashes. Naruto isn’t sure whether his expression speaks of acceptance or defeat. “Backup should be here in thirty-six hours, more or less. I’ll just have to hold on until then.”

He’s right: they’re not medical-nin, and without a medic’s help, they can’t do anything to help Kakashi. That fact makes Naruto want to scream, but instead, he just nods silently. Kakashi nods back and closes his eye.

“I’ll just spare my strength for now,” he murmurs. “You guys should probably do the same. Don’t waste your energy worrying, yeah? We’ve already survived so much during this mission. Surely we can survive this, too.”

With that, he falls asleep again, leaving the rest of Team Seven alone with their thoughts.

Not long after that, the first drops of rain start falling down on the cabin, and the quiet sound of raindrops soon turns into a loud rattling. Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke stand outside one by one, letting the rain wash the blood off their clothes. Naruto’s pants were entirely soaked in red from the knees down, a reminder of the fact that he sat in a puddle of Kakashi’s blood yesterday. His jacket, which he held against the wound in his desperate attempts to stop the bleeding, stays vaguely red no matter how hard he tries to wash out the blood.

When Naruto walks back into the cabin afterwards, soaking wet and cold, he notices that despite his attempts to clean himself off, there’s still dried blood underneath his fingernails. It makes him feel uneasy in a way that he can’t quite put into words.

The rain continues, soon joined by the rumbling of thunder and the occasional flashing of lightning overhead. As the temperature outside gets lower and lower, Kakashi’s temperature only rises. The genin soak some bandages from the first-aid kit in water and lay them on Kakashi’s forehead, trying to help him cool off. He briefly shifts in his sleep, but other than that, he’s too out of it to react to it. He barely reacts to anything, anymore; when it’s time for lunch and his teammates try to wake him up, he stays unconscious.

Kakashi sleeps restlessly, tossing and turning on the futon. He’s clearly having nightmares. Naruto tries to wake him up a couple of times, but Kakashi doesn’t react to it. Occasionally, Naruto notices that he’s staring at the ceiling through his eyelashes, but even in that state, he’s still too out of it to respond to anything. It seems like even when Kakashi is awake, he’s still dreaming.

Naruto forces himself to sit still and stay by Kakashi’s side; he knows how much nightmares suck, especially if you can’t wake up. He knows how disorienting it can be to wake up afterwards. When that happens, Naruto wants to be there for Kakashi.

At some point in the evening, Naruto steps outside to drench a new batch of bandages in rainwater – he’s been laying new bandages on Kakashi’s forehead every twenty minutes or so, though they always warm up again almost immediately. He tries to hold on to the hope that it’s helping, though he knows that that’s not the case.

When he gets back inside, Kakashi has thrown his blanket half off him, his hands balled into fists and his back arching off the futon. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut; he’s clearly dreaming, and whatever he’s dreaming about, it’s clearly awful.

As Naruto sits down next to the futon, Kakashi jerks his head to the side, mumbling something unintelligible. Naruto can’t hear what he’s saying, but he knows that it’s a name. Kakashi has been saying the same names over and over: “Obito”, “Rin”, “Minato-sensei”. Occasionally, “dad”. The name “Minato” catches Naruto’s attention – how could it not, when it’s the name of one of the former Hokage? Regardless, he tries his best not to pay too much attention to the things Kakashi says. Of course he’s curious about Kakashi’s past, but it feels like cheating to find out about it like this. He trusts that Kakashi will tell them when he’s ready.

“Kakashi-sensei,” he tries, although he knows it won’t help. “Wake up. Kakashi-sensei.”

Kakashi doesn’t react, just digs the heel of his good foot into the futon, throwing the blanket off him further. A strangled whimper escapes from his throat.

Naruto carefully tugs the blanket over Kakashi again, and he switches out the bandages on his forehead for cold ones. When his hand accidentally brushes past Kakashi’s forehead, he feels that it’s far, far too warm. Quickly, he pulls the blanket off him again. It immediately leaves Kakashi shivering. He jerks his head to the side again, a restless movement, and the cold bandages slide off his face, leaving a damp stain on the pillow.

Naruto sits back, suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that nothing he tries is helping. It hurts that Kakashi is sick and visibly scared and probably in pain, and that Naruto can do nothing about it. It hurts that Kakashi helped Naruto with his nightmares, and now Naruto can’t return the favor.

Except maybe… Maybe he can. Thinking back to when Kakashi helped him has given him an idea. It’s probably a little childish, but Naruto decides to do it anyway. Nothing else he’s tried is helping, anyway.

Naruto clears his throat and sings the lullaby that Kakashi sang to him.

He’s not very good at singing at all; the first notes of the song make Sasuke and Sakura look up in confusion. Sasuke frowns, but he doesn’t say anything. Sakura, who had been dozing off a little in the corner, soon closes her eyes again. They’re probably weirded out, but they don’t interrupt him, and Naruto appreciates that. He closes his eyes so that they won’t distract him; he wants to sing this as well as he possibly can.

Singing to Kakashi is weird – not only because he’s an adult and very much too old for lullabies, but also because Naruto isn’t even certain if he can hear him – but Naruto does it anyway. He remembers how safe and comforted the words of this song made him feel when he was struggling with nightmares. Maybe, if Kakashi can hear him, it’ll help him feel safe as well.

Naruto isn’t a great singer, but he remembers every word of the song and he hopes that that makes up for the notes that he misses. Well, he remembers most of the song, because he fell asleep towards the end. He’s just about to let his voice trail off – this really is the last line he remembers – when a second voice joins in, quiet and painfully hoarse.

Surprised, Naruto blinks open his eyes and sees how Kakashi sings the last few lines of the lullaby, his voice so soft that it’s barely audible over the sound of the rain. He’s staring at some nonexistant spot on the ceiling. He doesn’t acknowledge Naruto, or Sakura or Sasuke, and Naruto finds himself wondering if Kakashi knows they’re there at all. His eyes are open, but he seems like he’s still dreaming.

By the time he’s sung the last few words of the lullaby, he’s out of breath, a drop of sweat rolling down the side of his face. His chest heaving, he turns to look at Naruto. The sudden eye contact startles him – especially since it feels like Kakashi is staring straight through Naruto, his pupils wide and his Sharingan spinning sluggishly. The faint glow of his Sharingan makes his face look even redder than it is. He looks really, really sick, and it startles Naruto so badly that he doesn’t dare say anything.

A beat passes in silence, the sound of rain the only sound between them. Sakura and Sasuke are watching; Kakashi hasn’t been properly awake in almost twelve hours. They’re all anxiously waiting to see whether this change is a good thing or a bad thing.

And then, Kakashi squints at Naruto and asks: “Minato-sensei? What are you doing here?”

Naruto instinctively looks over his shoulder, but there’s no one standing behind him like he expected. It takes him a few seconds to realize that of course there wouldn’t be anyone standing behind him. Kakashi said that he lost his sensei when he was young. Whoever Minato-sensei is, he’s been dead for years.

That realization feels like a punch to the gut. Naruto just stares back at Kakashi, unable to think, unable to speak. At his silence, Kakashi’s eyebrows draw together in an anxious expression. “Tell me why you’re here,” he repeats. “Did another war break out? Is that why you’re in my apartment in the middle of the night? We have to fight in another war?”

They’re not in Kakashi’s apartment, and it’s not the middle of the night, and there hasn’t been a war since before Naruto was born. Naruto decides not to focus on that, though – because even though all of that isn’t real, Kakashi’s fear absolutely is. His eyes are wide and his breathing is quickening, and Naruto has to help him calm down.

“No,” he says quickly, “there’s no war. It’s okay.” He remembers how Kakashi spoke to him when he was freaking out, and he tries to imitate that tone; Naruto hopes that it’ll help Kakashi calm down like it helped him calm down. “You’re safe. Just kinda sick. Kinda really sick. So I’m, uh, I’m here to take care of you.” He feels like it’d only confuse Kakashi more if he tried to explain that he’s not Minato-sensei, so he tries to fit into the role. It feels like lying.

“Oh.” Kakashi’s brow relaxes somewhat. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Yeah. So you should probably try to rest some more.” Maybe if he goes back to sleep, he’ll sleep off this confusion. “Maybe you’ll feel better when you wake up.”

Kakashi nods slowly; his breaths seem to come a little easier, now, although he’s still shivering awfully. “Okay.” He lowers his head to the pillow. “You know you don’t have to stay here, right? I’m not that sick. I’m sure you have better things to do, sensei.”

Kakashi still thinks that he’s talking to an entirely different person, and Naruto tries not to flinch at the reminder of that. Instead, he just smiles at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Fine, then. Good night, I suppose.”

“Good night,” Naruto replies faintly. Kakashi doesn’t reply. In a way, Naruto feels glad that he’s passed out. He’s not sure if he would’ve been able to bear that conversation for much longer.

Naruto exhales shakily and looks up at Sasuke and Sakura, who are still watching from the corner. Sasuke is frowning deeply, and Sakura has her hand clasped across her mouth. “He’s in really bad shape,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” Naruto agrees. “What just… happened?”

Sakura wipes at her nose with the back of her hand. “He’s probably delirious,” she replies, her voice cracking. “The fever must be messing with his head pretty bad.”

Naruto looks down at Kakashi’s sleeping form. “He’s-- He’s going to recognize us again eventually, right?”

“I think he will, yeah. He’s just hallucinating right now.” Sakura sniffles. “He should be fine if we can get his fever to go down, but we’re already doing everything I can think of with the supplies that we have. All we can really do is wait it out.”

“Twenty-four hours until backup gets here,” Sasuke says numbly, and Sakura sobs quietly into her hand.

After the brief, delirious conversation that Kakashi had with Naruto, Kakashi stays asleep. His fever worsens, and his nightmares worsen with it; he spends the whole night tossing and turning, occasionally crying out in his sleep. Naruto sits with him all night, humming that lullaby of his over and over. Sasuke chooses instead to give Kakashi what little privacy he can give him, and he stands watch outside.

In the morning, Kakashi slips deeper into unconsciousness, and he stops reacting to his nightmares. The fact that he finally lies still gives Sakura a chance to change the bandages on his burn. Naruto and Sasuke wait outside; they both prefer standing in the rain over dealing with the burned flesh on Kakashi’s leg.

Sakura joins them outside after fifteen minutes or so, quietly. She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes look puffy and her bottom lip is trembling and that says enough.

The three of them stand in the pouring rain for a while, not saying anything. Naruto is the one who breaks the silence. “So how bad is it?” he asks. His voice is hoarse, probably because he was singing all night.

Sakura tilts her chin upwards, letting the rain mix with the tears on her face. “It’s bad,” she replies. “There’s a lot of swelling, and the burn itself is-- It’s--” Her words catch in her throat. “I don’t want to describe it. I’m pretty sure it’s septic. And his fever has never been this high before. Let’s just hope that help gets here soon. I don’t think Kakashi-sensei has much longer.”

Her words leave Sasuke wanting to punch something. All of this is so damn frustrating. Kakashi has survived so much crap during this mission. He’s survived getting his leg cut open with a sword. He’s survived three battles, all of which against opponents that could’ve killed him. He’s walked on a wounded leg for days. He’s pushed through an infection, through fever, through pain and chakra exhaustion. He almost bled out and he endured having his wound burned shut. He’s survived all of those things – and now he could die because they have to wait for too long.

Sasuke balls his hands into fists. “We should’ve taken Kakashi-sensei to Konoha ourselves,” he mutters. “We would’ve made it there within twenty-four hours. We would’ve already gotten to the hospital by now, instead of being stuck here, waiting for help that may not even come.”

Sakura shakes her head somberly. “We’ve gone over this already,” she replies. “Kakashi-sensei needs rest; if we’d tried to move him, he might not have made it home alive. And on top of that, even if he did make it home, carrying him through the rain for so long would’ve only made him sicker in the long run.”

“I know. I hate it anyway.” He grits his teeth, trying to think of something, anything they can do to help. His mind stays awfully blank. Sakura said it before, and she was right: they’re already doing everything they can. All they can do is have faith that Kakashi is strong enough to survive.

So, he realizes, the best way to help Kakashi is to make sure that he stays safe. To make sure that Team Seven isn’t killed before they get rescued. So it’s important that they stay in good shape, so that they’re prepared to defend themselves, in case trouble finds them again.

And right now, Team Seven isn’t in good shape at all. Naruto hasn’t slept in two days, and Sakura is visibly breaking down – she stopped taking painkillers so that Kakashi could take double doses if needed, and it’s clearly taking its toll on her. If they were caught up in a fight right now, they would be killed immediately.

“You two should go back inside,” he tells Naruto and Sakura. “You’ll just end up making yourselves sick if you stay in the rain for much longer. You should go get some sleep.” He makes sure that his tone is as harsh as possible, to make it clear that he’s not speaking out of concern for their wellbeing; he just wants everyone to get out of this alive.

At Sakura’s questioning expression and Naruto’s vaguely-amused look, he clarifies: “You’re both clearly tired – if we were caught up in a fight right now, you’d be completely useless. So get back inside and get some damn rest.”

 The amusement in their expressions increases, but they thankfully decide to listen to him. Naruto casts him a teasing grin before he closes the cabin door, and Sasuke glares at him in return. He can’t bring himself to truly feel mad, though.

It’s a couple of hours later when Naruto emerges from the cabin again, looking considerably more well-rested than before. By then, Sasuke has started getting tired; he was standing watch all night, and his focus is wavering. When Naruto offers to take over guard duty from him, he doesn’t protest.

Sasuke gets back into the cabin and closes the door behind him, shutting out the sound of rain. His clothes feel heavy and cold – he hadn’t noticed how soaked he is until he stepped out of the rain. The air inside the cabin is slightly warmer than the air outside, and Sasuke realizes with a pang of uneasiness that the small room is probably being warmed up by nothing but Kakashi’s body temperature.

Kakashi is still lying on the futon, unmoving except for the shivers that wrack his body every few seconds. Next to the futon, Sakura is sitting on the floor, with her back to Sasuke. She looks over her shoulder, acknowledging him silently. She doesn’t say anything, and she quickly turns her attention back to Kakashi.

“I thought I told you to go to sleep,” Sasuke says, looking down at her. “Were you watching over Kakashi-sensei the whole time?”

Sakura shrugs, her shoulders slumping. “I couldn’t fall asleep. I figured I might as well make myself useful.”

Sasuke gives a thoughtful hum. In any other situation, he might’ve yelled at her for not listening to him, but he just doesn’t want to be mad at her. “I guess that makes sense.”

A silence falls between them. Sasuke leans against the doorway, studying her. They’re alone in here, except for Kakashi, who isn’t conscious. The old Sakura would’ve used a moment like this to flirt with Sasuke, but she doesn’t do that now. She’s changed. So has he. Before this mission, he never would’ve willingly subjected himself to a conversation with her. Or with any of his teammates, really. He never got within a twenty-meter radius of them unless he was forced to.

Now, he finds himself sitting down on the floor next to Sakura. She doesn’t look at him, so he doesn’t look at her, either. Instead, he nods his chin towards Kakashi’s asleep form. “Any updates on his status?” he asks, and he finds that his voice is soft.

Sakura shrugs again, her shoulders slumping even further. “Not really,” she replies. “He hasn’t woken up since yesterday. His fever’s been getting higher, so I tried to get it down more.” Sure enough, damp bandages are wrapped around his forearms. The cloth on his forehead looks like it’s recently been drenched in water again, a few drops of water slipping down the side of Kakashi’s face. Sakura shakes her head. “It doesn’t seem like it’s working, though.”

She looks pale. Sasuke looks away. “I could watch over him for a couple of hours,” he says. “Go to sleep. It’s clear that you need it.”

Sakura frowns and looks back to Kakashi. “I’d rather not,” she says. “It’s just that I… I feel responsible. I caused Kakashi-sensei so much pain… If he wakes up in pain, I have to be there to help. To make up for all the pain that I caused.”

Something in Sasuke’s brain short-circuits with anger. “That’s bullshit, and you know it,” he snaps. “You’re the only reason he’s still alive. You were the one who burned his wound shut, sure, but that made sure that he didn’t bleed out.” He scoffs. “You saved his life, and you saved mine and Naruto’s as well, multiple times. You’re the only reason why Team Seven is still complete. So don’t say that you feel guilty for saving Kakashi-sensei’s life. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Sakura sniffles, but she nods. “I guess you’re right.”

“Damn right I am,” Sasuke huffs. “So just… don’t feel guilty. And let me watch over Kakashi-sensei for a while while you get some rest. If it makes you feel better, I’ll wake you up if he so much as rolls over, okay?”

“Okay.” She gives him a sad smile. “Thank you.”

Sasuke takes her place at Kakashi’s side, and Sakura leans herself against the wall. She’s drifted off within minutes.

In the new silence, Sasuke’s anger wavers and is replaced by that heavy feeling of uselessness that has been sitting on his chest for the past day and a half. Sasuke hasn’t been near Kakashi since yesterday, and he looks so much worse than he did back then. His face is a dark and splotchy red, his skin looking dry and raw, and his eyelids look bruised. He’s curled up on the futon, shivering awfully.

He looks nothing like the shinobi that protected Team Seven’s lives on multiple occasions. Sasuke can only imagine the level of misery that it would take to make someone so powerful look so small.

He’s shivering so badly that it almost looks like he’s cold, but he’s so warm that Sasuke can feel the heat radiating off him. The futon’s blanket is pulled off him in an attempt to help him cool off, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Nothing seems to be working.

The whole situation pisses Sasuke off. This isn’t how being sick is supposed to work. The last time Sasuke himself had a high fever, he got to lie in bed at home for a week. His mom read him a story and his brother taught him a card game. That’s what being sick is supposed to be like.

It’s supposed to involve tea and soup and safety, and proper medicine if necessary. It’s not supposed to involve lying on the cold floor of a random cabin in the woods. It’s not supposed to involve severe chakra exhaustion and almost bleeding out and being in pain from a burn that you can’t get treated. And it’s definitely not supposed to involve the fear that this fever is going to kill you.

It’s not fair. Kakashi deserves better.

Sasuke sighs, trying to calm his mind. He realizes that getting frustrated won’t help. It’ll just tire him out. So instead, he tries to have faith. To believe that Kakashi will make it, despite the horrible circumstances. He has to make it. He promised he wouldn’t die.

Six more hours until help arrives.

Chapter Text

In the woods around Konoha, late at night, two pairs of sandals thump onto the forest floor, splashing in the puddles of rainwater on the ground.

The sandals belong to a Konoha medical-nin and an ANBU shinobi; a small rescue squad. The two of them have been traveling for almost a full day, never slowing down. Their footsteps are quick and steady, despite their tiredness and the cold rain. They can’t let themselves feel the tiredness, nor the cold. They have a mission.

Their mission is to meet up with Hatake Kakashi’s team and bring them home.

The emotionless cat mask on the ANBU’s face shows no hints of his true expression, of the tension in his jaw and the lines between his eyebrows. It’s a look of worry, and the ANBU feels that that worry is entirely justified. After all, he’s known Kakashi for nearly half of his life – and he knows that when Kakashi’s missions go wrong, they go wrong spectacularly.

“Tenzou-taichou.” The medical-nin’s voice pulls him from his musings. She holds up the map at him. “We’re almost there.”

Tenzou gives her a curt nod as a reply. “Keep your guard up. We could be stepping into a dangerous situation at any time.” Kakashi has always had a talent for attracting trouble. The request for backup said nothing about enemies, but it’s been two days since Team Seven asked for help. A lot can happen in that time.

The medic nods back at him. “Yes, sir.”

The knowledge that they’re almost at their destination – almost at Team Seven’s location – makes the knot in Tenzou’s gut tighten. He has a bad feeling about this.

He’s had that bad feeling ever since yesterday, when one of Kakashi’s ninken rushed into the Hokage’s office with a request for backup and a medic. Tenzou had been in the Hokage’s office at that moment, reporting back from a mission that he’d just finished. He’d been there by chance, and he’s glad about that; if he hadn’t been there right then, it’s likely that some other shinobi would’ve been sent out to help Team Seven. ANBU aren’t usually sent on rescue missions. But Tenzou had offered to go, and he’d left Konoha ten minutes later with a medical-nin in tow.

That was almost twenty-four hours ago, now – which is a pretty long time to have to wait for backup. And it especially worries Tenzou that Kakashi had asked for a medic. The injury that Kakashi’s ninken described didn’t sound exceptionally serious, but Tenzou knows that Kakashi won’t admit that he’s injured unless it’s bad. Considering that he’s apparently so injured that he can’t move, it’s probably really bad. It takes a lot before Kakashi admits that he’s at his limit.

Tenzou turns his focus back to his surroundings. It’s no use worrying, and he knows that. He’ll just have to hope that they’ll reach him in time.

A glimmer in the corner of his eye draws his attention; wire shimmering in the scarce moonlight. The wire is part of a snare, half hidden underneath the mud on the ground. The trap is poorly concealed, but it’s well-made, Tenzou notices. If he were to step into it, he would certainly break his leg.

“Keep an eye out for traps,” he calls towards the medic, who nods in return. The traps will make their journey harder, but they’re a good sign nonetheless. If Tenzou is correct, then these traps are the handiwork of Kakashi’s students. Which means that they’re getting closer.

More traps follow, ranging from mostly-harmless to straight-up deadly. The rain has washed away most of the mud that the traps were hidden underneath, but the darkness still makes the traps difficult to see. They could do some serious damage to an unprepared attacker. And if Konoha had sent out a chuunin to rescue Team Seven, they would’ve had a seriously difficult time getting through here.

Eventually, after they’ve zigzagged in between the traps for a while, a dark shape looms out of the darkness, and Tenzou and the medic pause. They’ve reached some sort of cabin. Vaguely, Tenzou can see a bit of light through the smudged windows.

A few meters to the side, someone small is standing in the shadow of a tree – a genin, Tenzou thinks, and he squashes his instinct to grab a kunai. If he pulled out a weapon, he might make the genin feel threatened, and that’s not what he wants.

The genin spots him and jumps into a battle stance. “Hey!” he shouts. It’s the Jinchuuriki’s voice; this is Uzumaki Naruto. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

At his shout, the door to the cabin slams open and two more small forms come running outside. Tenzou recognizes the glow of Uchiha Sasuke’s Sharingan. He’s doesn’t know much about the third genin, but if he remembers correctly, her name is Haruno Sakura. Kakashi himself is noticeably missing from the picture.

Tenzou steps towards them, holding his hands above his head. He’s not here to hurt these kids, and he tries to make that as clear as possible. The medic follows his lead.

“We’re the backup that you asked for,” Tenzou says. “We’ve come to help.” Tenzou makes sure that his tone is gentle – these kids’ nerves are probably shot by now. Kakashi is too hurt to fight; if he’s as bad off as Tenzou fears, then these kids have been holed up in this cabin with their very hurt jounin-sensei for days. They have every right to be nervous. If Tenzou wants this to go smoothly, he should try his best not to appear like a threat. “You’re Hatake Kakashi’s students, correct?” He already knows that these are Kakashi’s genin, but maybe the easy question will help them calm down a little.

“Who’s asking?” the Jinchuuriki – Uzumaki Naruto – demands.

Tenzou takes off his mask, revealing his face and Konoha forehead protector. “My name is Tenzou,” he says. “I’m an ANBU shinobi from Konoha. I’m a friend of Kakashi’s.”

To his relief and surprise, recognition sparks in the kids’ eyes. Kakashi must’ve told his students about him, then. Tenzou feels a pang of uneasiness when he tries to imagine what kinds of stories Kakashi could’ve told about him, but it doesn’t matter anyway. If Kakashi told his students embarrassing stories about Tenzou like he fears, then that at least means that his students will see Tenzou as someone non-threatening.

Haruno Sakura narrows her eyes at him, not lowering her kunai. There are bandages around her hand, Tenzou notices. Her other arm is in a splint, held tightly against her chest. She’s injured, but if she’s in pain, she’s hidden it well.

“Kakashi-sensei said that you’re the only one in the world who can use Woodstyle ninjutsu,” she says. “Can you show us? To prove that you really are who you say you are?”

It’s smart; it’s not something that most genin would think to ask. Tenzou nods. “Sure.”

He holds out a hand and grows a branch from his palm, making a couple of leaves sprout from it. It’s the most non-threatening use of his jutsu that he can think of – these kids are nervous, and rightfully so. If he’d used his Woodstyle to grow a weapon, then that would just make their mistrust grow.

Naruto takes a step forwards and inspects the miniature tree, bringing his hands together in a ‘release’ sign. He’s checking whether this is a genjutsu or not. Once again, it’s a smart move. Kakashi has taught these genin well.

When the attempt at breaking a genjutsu does nothing, Naruto bites down on his lower lip, hard. If Tenzou’s Woodstyle had been a genjutsu, it would’ve definitely been broken by now. Naruto looks up at Tenzou, and then at the medical-nin, and then back to Tenzou.

“I think we can trust them,” he tells his teammates.

“We should be careful, still,” Sasuke replies. “But I think we can trust them, too.”

Sakura immediately locks eyes with the medic. “Kakashi-sensei is inside,” she tells her, her voice suddenly rising with urgency. Tenzou realizes abruptly that the genin hadn’t shown the slightest hint of emotion until they knew for sure that they were safe. If Tenzou had been there to attack them, he never would’ve guessed that one of their teammates was down. They effectively hid their worry about Kakashi in order to protect him. “He’s really sick-- Please help him.”

The medical-nin hurries into the cabin, not wasting any more time. Sakura follows her closely. Tenzou stays behind with the boys, who are still eyeing him somewhat suspiciously. He smiles at them, hoping that that’ll help.

“I can stand guard, if you want to go inside,” he tells them.

Naruto accepts his offer with a nod and quickly follows Sakura into the cabin. Sasuke stays outside. “I’m not about to trust you just like that,” Sasuke says. There’s a certain kind of carefulness in his words that even most ANBU recruits don’t develop until later on in their careers. Tenzou remembers how Uchiha Itachi was when he first joined ANBU; he definitely didn’t sound the same way that Sasuke sounds right now. Tenzou is sure that Sasuke wouldn’t appreciate being compared to his brother, though.

Tenzou shrugs and turns his gaze to the trees around them, showing that he’s not watching Sasuke’s every move; maybe that’ll make him feel more at ease. “Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of mistrust.”

Judging by the hum that Sasuke gives in return, he agrees. “Even if you are worthy of my trust,” he replies, “you shouldn’t ever expect me to trust you as much as I trust my teammates. No offense.”

Kakashi really did teach them well. “None taken.”

They lapse into silence. From inside the cabin, Tenzou can hear the faint hum of the medic’s medical ninjutsu – probably diagnostic ninjutsu, to determine whether Kakashi can be healed here at all or needs to be taken to the hospital. Tenzou has seen this play out before. This isn’t the first time he’s seen Kakashi injured.

“His temperature’s pretty high,” the medic murmurs. “For how long has it been like this?”

“Sensei’s wound got infected a week ago,” Sakura replies quietly. “He’s had a fever since then. Though it got really bad two days ago, when his soldier pill wore off, and then we--”

“Wait.” The medic cuts her off, distracted by her medical ninjutsu. Her voice sounds alarmed. “Your request for help mentioned a cut on Kakashi’s leg,” she says. “Would anyone care to explain why there’s a large septic burn on his leg instead?”

“That’s what I was about to say.” Sakura’s voice is tearful. “We got-- We got attacked by a missing-nin right after we sent for backup. The fight opened Kakashi-sensei’s wound again, and it-- it wouldn’t stop bleeding…”

“So he cauterized it,” the medical-nin finishes her sentence with a sigh.

“No,” Sakura replies faintly, “I did.”

There’s a moment of silence; the medical-nin’s expression must’ve been something to behold, because when Naruto next speaks, his tone is defensive. “She saved sensei’s life,” he says. “We tried everything else. There was no other way to stop the bleeding.” He pauses. “We really-- We really wouldn’t have put him through that if it wasn’t necessary.”

“We know it was risky,” Sakura says quietly. “Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad,” the medical-nin replies. “I’m… honestly not even surprised. When Kakashi gets hurt, it somehow always evolves into the worst of the worst. He seriously would’ve been dead without you three. I don’t want to imagine what would’ve happened if this had been a solo mission.”

Next to Tenzou, Sasuke shifts uncomfortably. Tenzou can understand his discomfort; he must’ve known that Kakashi was in bad shape, but hearing a medic confirm it probably startled him regardless. It startled Tenzou, too. He’d hoped that he was worrying for no reason, but it seems that that’s not the case. Sepsis… Backup arrived not a moment too soon.

There’s a faint rustling noise inside the cabin; the sounds of the medic taking out supplies from her backpack. “I’ll stabilize him,” she continues, “and after that, we should get him to the hospital as quickly as possible. He needs blood and fluids, and that leg of his needs to be cleaned properly before I can heal it. I’ll give him a shot of antibiotics, and I’ll bring down his fever as well as I can – we’re leaving after that, so pack your things.”

The humming of medical ninjutsu returns, along with the sounds of the genin zipping their backpacks closed. Naruto steps outside the cabin to toss Sasuke his backpack. Naruto is carrying two backpacks on his back; a small one and a larger one on top of that, presumably Kakashi’s. Kakashi’s headband is tied to one of the backpack’s straps.

“Ready to leave,” comes the medic’s voice from inside the cabin. “Tenzou-taichou, would you mind giving me a hand?”

Tenzou turns and steps into the cabin, joining the medical-nin inside. Naruto and Sasuke follow him, idly watching him. The cabin is dimly lit; there are a few candles scattered around the room, but most of them have burned up. Kakashi is lying on a futon in the middle of the cabin, curled in on himself and lying alarmingly still. Tenzou can’t see his chest move, but he can hear Kakashi breathe, the shallow breaths wheezing in his throat in rapid succession. His face is a dark red color, though it’s difficult to see between the mask and the hair that’s sticking to his forehead. The cabin smells profoundly of sweat and blood and something rotten.

He looks so terrible that Tenzou is almost surprised to notice that the bandages around his leg are clean, and that there are damp cloths lying on his forehead and wrapped around his wrists, the cloths not yet dry. Despite how hopeless things must’ve looked, the genin clearly tried their best to take care of Kakashi. Tenzou remembers the medic’s words from just now: Kakashi would’ve been dead without his students. He clearly taught his students to value their teammates. He taught Tenzou the exact same thing. Tenzou can imagine how terrified these genin must’ve been.

Tenzou crouches next to Kakashi. “I’ll carry him,” he says, when he notices that the genin are watching him closely. “Is that all right with you?”

The genin share a look. Then, Naruto nods. “Just be careful,” he says, “please.”

“If you drop him, you’ll regret it,” Sasuke mutters.

“I’ll be careful,” Tenzou replies with a nod. After a moment of hesitation, he shrugs out of his rain cloak and wraps it around Kakashi; it’s probably best to keep him dry in this weather. The cloak makes him look even smaller than he already looked.

Tenzou puts one arm underneath Kakashi’s shoulders and one underneath his knees, and he lifts Kakashi off the futon as carefully as he can. The genin start forwards briefly, a reminder of the fragility of their trust. Tenzou readjusts Kakashi in his arms, showing the genin that he won’t drop him. Kakashi’s head rests limply against Tenzou’s shoulder. He is uncomfortably warm to the touch, despite the medic’s efforts to lower his temperature.

Once he has a secure grip on Kakashi, Tenzou straightens up and looks around the room. “Right,” he says. “Let’s not waste any more time. Getting to the hospital is our highest priority. That means that we’ll travel as quickly as we can, with as few breaks as possible.” He turns to the genin. “If you get too tired to travel at any point, that’s okay,” he says, reminding himself that they only finished the Academy a few months ago; they haven’t had much time to train their stamina. And the past few days have been seriously rough for them, on top of that. They have every right to be exhausted. “You can travel at your own pace, if you need to. I can run ahead.”

Sasuke scowls at him. “No,” he says. “We can keep up with you. We’ll all travel together. I’m not letting Kakashi-sensei out of my sight until we’re home and safe.”

“All right, then,” Tenzou replies. “Just follow me, then.” He gives the genin a smile. “Let’s get you home, Team Seven.”

The journey home is long and difficult. Naruto doesn’t get tired easily, but traveling for twenty-four hours straight is hard even for him. His teammates have it worse; Sasuke starts stumbling over his feet around sunrise, and Naruto has never seen Sakura frown this intensely.

Tenzou makes a couple of Wood Clones to carry them at some point, just so that they can rest a little, though he’s too tired to keep up the jutsu for long. He and the medic likely haven’t rested since they left Konoha, Naruto realizes. It would’ve been easier for Tenzou to just leave the genin behind, but he’s kind enough not to, and Naruto appreciates that.

They keep up their fast pace of travel, despite their exhaustion. They don’t stop – they can’t waste any time. Kakashi needs to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. They’ve come too far to let him die on the way there.

So they make their way to Konoha, through the pouring rain. The night passes, the day passes, and night falls again. Naruto supposes that he’d never realized what it really means to travel for twenty-four hours straight. Twenty-four hours doesn’t sound like an excessively long time – especially compared to the eleven days that they’ve been out here – but it is now dark and they haven’t stopped traveling since the last time it was dark. Time feels weird.

“Just a little while longer,” Tenzou calls at some point, and it catches Naruto off guard; it feels like they’ve been traveling forever, and it feels like they still have forever to go. The notion of getting to sit down soon suddenly makes him even more aware of the tiredness in his limbs.

He starts to recognize the forest around him – he’s spent a lot of time here. They’re not far from Konoha, he knows. Maybe a few more minutes. It feels surreal.

His gaze falls on Kakashi, who is still being carried in Tenzou’s arms. He hasn’t been awake since they left, despite the medical-nin’s attempts to help him. She explained that medical ninjutsu can’t help him much right now; healing his leg while it’s infected like this would just trap all sorts of grossness underneath his skin, so it needs to be cleaned at the hospital first. And beside that, medical ninjutsu can’t take away the sepsis, nor the chakra exhaustion. Kakashi needs medicine instead, and lots of rest.

Just a little while longer, he tells himself. Just a little while longer and they’ll be home. He stares at Kakashi and tries to mentally tell him as well: just a little while longer and they’ll get to the hospital and Kakashi will be okay.

And then, Konoha’s gates loom in front of them, the tall shapes illuminated by the little bit of moonlight. Naruto reflexively bites his tongue, trying to make sure that this is real. The image of the gates doesn’t disappear.

“Holy shit,” he hears Sasuke murmur next to him. Naruto can only nod mutely. He can’t bring himself to look away from the gates, irrationally scared that they’ll disappear if he looks away. In the corner of his eye, he can see that Sasuke and Sakura are staring as well.

They follow Tenzou and the medic through the gates. The guards at the gates acknowledge them; “Welcome back!” shouts one of them. Naruto barely has any mind to reply. He’s still trying to wrap his head around the fact that they’re here, finally.

The group makes a beeline for the hospital. As soon as they’re through the hospital’s entrance, Tenzou and the medical-nin hurry off into a hallway, taking Kakashi with them. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura are instructed to find a waiting room and wait there. They can’t come with Kakashi. Naruto doesn’t argue, no matter how badly he wants to. He knows that arguing will just waste time; time that is better spent healing Kakashi.

The three of them end up in a quiet waiting room; it’s late in the evening, so there aren’t many people around. They’re the only ones in the waiting room. Strangely enough, it calms Naruto down that they’re alone here. He finds that other people stress him out.

It’s weird to be here, in this waiting room, in the hospital, in Konoha. They’re home. It hasn’t really sunk in yet; it doesn’t feel like they’ve returned yet. They’re still out of breath from running. They’re soaked to the bone in rainwater, and their sandals are caked with mud. Sakura’s hair is tangled and dirty, and Naruto is pretty sure that his teammates’ faces are a bit thinner than they were before. They’re home, but they definitely don’t look like they’re home. It probably won’t feel like they’re home until they’ve had a bath and a meal and a good long nap.

Not to mention that their team is incomplete. Naruto frowns at the absence of their sensei in his immediate sight. It probably won’t truly feel like they’re at home until Kakashi is all better.

They sit in silence, waiting quietly. Tenzou returns to them at some point, pulling up a chair and sitting down heavily across from them. The medical-nin are treating Kakashi now, he says. They’ll give Team Seven updates on his status whenever they can.

The statement makes Naruto’s hope grow a little stronger. It’d been so difficult to hold on to his hope, as Kakashi grew weaker and weaker right before his eyes, and it’d been difficult to hold on to his hope as they traveled as well – what if Kakashi suddenly took a turn for the worse and died on the way, while they were so close?

It’s starting to get easier to believe that things will be okay, now, though. Kakashi is in good hands, at last.

After Tenzou has given them that news about Kakashi, he asks Team Seven to tell him what happened during their mission. They’d briefly talked about it on the way home, but they’d still been too focused on Kakashi’s health to talk about it much. Now, they have the space to talk about their mission in detail.

So they talk. They talk about the bandits that ambushed them on their way back home, and about how Sakura protected her teammates, and about how Kakashi hurt his leg. They talk about the civilians that tried to rob them after that, and about how Sasuke was almost killed during that encounter.

They tell Tenzou about how difficult it was to travel, especially at first when everyone was still recovering from that initial fight, and especially when Kakashi’s wound got infected. They tell him about the fact that their food almost ran out a couple of times, and that they had to ration their water some days. They tell him about the morning when Kakashi wouldn’t wake up, and when he fainted from the pain later that day. They talk about how terrified they were that they wouldn’t make it home, or that they wouldn’t make it home together.

And finally, they tell Tenzou about that final fight against the missing-nin, when they’d already started celebrating that safety was within their reach. They’d already given Tenzou and the medic a brief summary of that fight earlier, and Naruto is glad that they don’t have to repeat what they’ve already said. That fight, and the moments after that, were too filled with despair to properly put into words.

There are tears; summing up their experiences like this really drives home the point that this entire mission was messed up. They tell their story with breaking voices, finishing one another’s sentences when one of them starts crying too hard to speak. By the time they get to talking about their time in the cabin, none of them are able to speak without sobbing. Sakura cries into Naruto’s shoulder and Sasuke wipes stubbornly at his eyes with the back of his hand, and Naruto himself doesn’t realize that he’s started crying until he feels warm tears slip down his face.

Talking about everything helps, though, no matter how difficult it is. It’s nice to talk about this mission in the past tense. It’s over, even though that hasn’t fully sunk in yet. Their mission is over. They’re home.

Once they finish talking and their tears have dried, Tenzou gets up and nods once. “I’ll go report to the Hokage for you,” he says. “You can stay here. A medical-nin could be here at any moment with news; you should be here for that.”

Naruto nods, wiping at his nose with his hand. “Thanks.”

“It’s no problem.” Tenzou pulls his ANBU mask over his face again. “Best of luck, you three,” he says, and then he’s gone.

Not long after that, Sakura is whisked away by a medical-nin. When she returns a few minutes later, the splint around her arm is gone, and the burn on her other hand has disappeared as well. The medical-nin from the rescue squad had offered to heal her earlier, but Sakura had declined – Kakashi was their highest priority.

Naruto watches silently as she closes the door to the waiting room behind her. She seems to be moving a lot more easily than before. The persistent frown on her face seems a lot less intense, too. “How’s your arm?” Naruto asks her as she turns around.

“Healed,” she replies simply. “The medical-nin said that the splint held the broken bone in place well, so it was easy to heal.” She sits down in between Naruto and Sasuke. “It’ll probably be a little hard to move my arm again at first, because I haven’t moved it in so long. Other than that, I should be fine.” She stretches her arms above her head. “That’s what the medical-nin said, at least.”

Sasuke hums an approving noise. He seems calmer; Naruto suspects that secretly, Sasuke had still been feeling guilty about the fact that Sakura broke her arm. Naruto had been feeling the same kind of anxiety – Sakura had broken her arm while trying to protect him and Sasuke, after all. It’s a relief to know that she’s going to be okay.

“Also, the medical-nin said that we should all try to eat a lot during the next couple of weeks,” Sakura continues. “Because we haven’t really had enough to eat during our mission. So we should try our best to get ourselves back to a healthy weight as soon as we can.”

“Sounds good to me,” Naruto replies with an enthousiastic nod. It’s been a long time since he was last able to eat as much as he wanted – the rescue squad had brought ration bars, but that still didn’t feel like nearly enough food. The notion of food makes his stomach grumble, but he doesn’t give in to the feeling of hunger. He needs to know that Kakashi is okay, first.

“Yeah,” Sakura agrees. She huffs a laugh. “I’ve never been this thin before, and I absolutely hate it. Diets are a sham. Next time we go out for food, I’m going to eat as much as I want. I’m going to gain as much weight as I want.”

She’s interrupted by a knock on the door, and the entirety of Team Seven immediately freezes. Naruto’s hand automatically moves towards his weapons pouch before he stops himself. When did people start startling him so bad?

“Come in,” Sasuke calls – Naruto notices that his hand is in his weapons pouch, no doubt holding a kunai inside. The knocking startled him, too.

A medical-nin enters the room; the one from before. If she’s here, then that means that she’s stopped treating Kakashi. Naruto’s eyes flicker over her face, trying to read her expression. If she stopped treating Kakashi because he’s dead, surely she would look sadder, right?

“How is Kakashi-sensei?” Sasuke demands. “Is he alive?” There’s a dangerous undertone to his voice that implies that this medical-nin won’t leave this room alive if she let Kakashi die.

Finally, the medical-nin’s expression becomes easier to read; she smiles reassuringly. “He’s alive,” she replies, “and he’s going to be fine. He’s still asleep right now, but he should wake up soon. We’ve given him antibiotics, painkillers, extra fluids and a blood transfusion. He’ll need to stay in the hospital for a while longer so that he can recover, but we expect that he’ll make a full recovery.”

It feels like the air in the waiting room suddenly becomes a lot less stifling; Naruto suddenly feels like he can breathe again, finally. Sasuke exhales a long sigh, his shoulders sagging in relief. Sakura smiles, her bottom lip wobbling again.

At Team Seven’s relieved expressions, the medical-nin continues, “We cleaned the burn on his leg as well, and it healed pretty nicely, all things considered. There was barely any nerve damage, and the damage that was there should heal by itself. He’ll have some trouble moving his leg at first, but he’ll be back to normal within a month or two.” She sighs. “He’ll recover faster if he goes to physical therapy, but he’s infamously stubborn about that, so… yeah.”

Sasuke shares a look with his teammates. “We could threaten him into going,” he says.

The medical-nin laughs. “You could try that. Maybe it’ll work.”

“What about his hearing?” Sakura asks. “An explosive tag went off next to his head – were you able to heal his hearing as well?”

“We couldn’t heal the damage to his hearing with medical ninjutsu,” the medical-nin replies, “so we’ll just have to wait and see if it gets better with time. It probably won’t stay as bad as it is right now, but he might permanently have tinnitus, though. We see it a lot when explosions go off near someone’s ears.”

“What’s tinnitus?” Naruto whispers to Sakura.

“It means that there’s ringing in your ears,” Sakura replies, also whispering. “It’s pretty common.”

“This tinnitus thing,” Naruto asks the medical-nin, “it’s not so serious that Kakashi-sensei has to quit being a shinobi, right? Or the fact that he’s going to have trouble walking for a while?”

The medical-nin shakes her head and laughs. “No. He’ll be on sick leave for a while, but he’ll be back to doing missions soon.”

“Oh. That’s good, ‘cause we’re not ready for him to stop being our sensei any time soon.” Naruto shuffles in his seat, suddenly impatient. “Hey, can we go see him? We want to be there when he wakes up.” Naruto himself would definitely freak out if he woke up and all of his teammates were gone. He wants to spare Kakashi that moment of panic.

The medical-nin takes them to the door of Kakashi’s hospital room. She tells them that they need to alert a medical-nin when Kakashi wakes up, and then she leaves them alone. Naruto remembers just in time to thank her; she did save Kakashi’s life, after all. This day has been so weird that he’d almost forgotten to thank her at all.

The genin of Team Seven pool into the hospital room. It’s a large room; there’s multiple beds here, though only one of them is occupied. Naruto is glad about that. He’s still not used to other people.

Kakashi is lying in the bed in the middle of the room, propped half upright with a pillow behind his back. His face looks relaxed; his eyes are closed, but they’re not squeezed shut, and he’s not frowning for the first time in days. He’s tucked in underneath blankets, though one arm lies on top of the blankets, an IV needle taped to his forearm. His uniform has been replaced by pale blue hospital pajamas, and a simple medical mask covers his face. There’s a little bit of red peeking out above the mask, a remainder of his fever, but his face isn’t nearly as red as before. Whatever medicine they gave him, it seems to be working.

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke drag some chairs over to the bed, and they sit in a circle around the bed. Naruto feels light, for the first time in days. That heavy despair in his chest is finally gone.

They’re home. They made it, and their team is still complete. They all made it home alive, finally.

In contented silence, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke wait for their fourth teammate to wake up.

Chapter Text

Consciousness returns to Kakashi slowly, dragging him from his sleep little by little. Sensation gradually seeps into his limbs, followed by the heavy ache of chakra exhaustion. He becomes aware that there’s light behind his eyelids, turning the inside of his eyelids a gentle peach color. He doesn’t open his eyes yet; even the thought of it is too tiring. For now, he’s perfectly content to just lie here, floating in between sleep and wakefulness.

For once, the realization that he’s awake isn’t instantly followed by a spike of nauseating pain. He can’t remember the last time he didn’t feel nauseous, so this is a nice change. He appreciates it, though he doesn’t dare celebrate it. He knows from experience that the pain could return at any moment.

He lies still for a while, scared that even the smallest movement will make the pain return. He expects that he’ll start feeling like he’s on fire again any second now, but the pain stays off. The burning agony in his leg has been replaced by a numb, somewhat cold sensation. Which is weird, because burns don’t just suddenly stop hurting. Did the pain get so bad that his brain started blocking it out? Is he so delirious that he forgot that he’s hurt? Is he dreaming? He feels too awake for this to be a dream.

At any rate, the mysterious disappearance of his pain probably isn’t a good thing. It has to be a sign that he needs medical attention, and soon. How much longer until backup gets here? What day is it? Kakashi has no idea how long it’s been since he last woke up. Judging by how dry and cracked his lips feel, it’s been a while.

Spurred on by his questions, Kakashi drags his half-asleep mind towards wakefulness – a heavy, slow process, much like trying to open a large thick curtain – and cracks open his eyes. His eyes are stinging with dehydration, his vision not quite focussing, but he immediately recognizes his students’ faces regardless. The three of them are sitting around him, and their faces brighten as soon as he opens his eyes; Kakashi finds himself reflexively smiling back.

Naruto gives him a little wave. “Hey there, sensei.”

“Hey.” Kakashi’s throat is dry, so the word comes out sounding like a huff of air. He clears his throat. “How much… How much longer until we can go home?”

His students’ grins widen, much to Kakashi’s confusion. “We’re already there,” Sakura replies.

Huh?

Kakashi blinks, forcing his eyes to focus – and he realizes only now that they aren’t still in the cabin like he assumed. He recognizes the white bedsheets and the pale-colored walls; he’s spent hundreds of hours between these walls. He’s in the hospital, and he’s never been this happy about that before.

“Ah,” he breathes. His sudden lack of pain makes a lot more sense, now. The burn stopped hurting because it’s not there anymore. He carefully touches his fingertips to the outside of his leg underneath the blankets, somehow still expecting a stab of pain to follow. He can feel the rough texture of a fresh scar through the thin fabric of hospital pajama pants. He’s healed.

Kakashi’s sluggish mind won’t supply him with words, so he stays silent, his mouth fallen open slightly. Naruto snickers at his baffled expression. “I know, right?” he asks. “It’s hard to wrap your head around.”

“Yeah. It is.” Kakashi can feel his brain try and fail to process all of this. His lingering fever doesn’t really help with that. All of this barely makes sense to him; the last thing he remembers is that he was lying in a cabin in the middle of the woods, unaware of anything except for the feeling that he was being cooked in his own skin. He remembers slipping back into sleep and trying his hardest to stay awake, because he wasn’t sure whether he would wake up again if he passed out. He remembers being terrified of dying right in front of his students’ eyes, because if they saw that happen, it would surely haunt them for the rest of their lives--

That’s the last moment he remembers, and now suddenly he’s here, in Konoha, in the hospital, and his students are okay and he’s okay and the fear that he’s going to die feels like an old bad dream. He’s not unfamiliar with that feeling of disorientation – this is hardly the first time he’s woken up in the hospital after a long period of unconsciousness – but this feels different. Never before has he been this relieved to be alive. The relief is so immense that it makes him feel a little lightheaded.

At his silence, Sakura’s eyebrows twitch into a worried expression. “Are you feeling okay, sensei?” she asks. “Sorry – that was probably a lot to just spring on you.”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m all right, I just…” Kakashi breaks off his sentence with a sigh; there are so many things that he wants to say to his students, but he can’t think of the right words. So instead of speaking, he just opens his arms to them and smiles. “Come here, you three.”

His students don’t hesitate at all – before Kakashi knows it, he’s holding all three of them in his arms. They’re careful in their embrace, probably scared that they’re going to hurt him. Kakashi pulls them closer, just to show that he’s okay. He’s still trembling and too warm, but he won’t fall apart at the slightest touch. Not anymore.

He exhales a slow breath, closing his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re all alive,” he says, because he’s finally identified the heavy feeling in his chest: it’s gratitude, so intense that it feels like he’s going to burst. “And, also… thank you for saving my life. You were so strong, and I know it wasn’t easy, and I’m so sorry for almost dying on you.”

“Stop apologizing, damn it,” Sasuke grumbles into his chest. “It sucked to see you so sick and hurt, and it sure as Hell wasn’t easy to keep you alive, but we’d do it again a hundred times.”

Sakura nods against Kakashi’s shoulder, and Naruto tightens his grip on him. “It was terrifying,” he says, and Kakashi can feel him tremble. “You seemed like you were in so much pain, and you were hallucinating, and your fever wasn’t going down no matter what we tried… We thought we’d have to go home without you.”

He dissolves into sobs, and Kakashi rubs his back. Kakashi remembers only bits and pieces of the moments that Naruto describes – he doesn’t remember hallucinating, just that he got too sick to tell the difference between dream and reality at some point – but he doesn’t need to remember that to imagine how scared his genin must’ve been.

“It’s over, now,” he murmurs. “We’re home, and we’re safe. We can leave this horrible mission behind us.”

They sit like that for a long time, Kakashi’s students clinging to him like they’re scared that he’ll disappear if they let go. Kakashi holds on to them, feeling them breathe in his arms. It’s a solid reminder: they’re alive. They could’ve died so many times, but they’re alive. They made it. Kakashi’s eyes sting, and he’s sure that it’s not just because of the dehydration.

After a while, Sasuke clears his throat and straightens up. “Not to ruin the moment,” he says, and his voice is cracking a little, “but we promised that we’d go get a medical-nin as soon as you woke up, sensei. We should probably go do that now.”

Kakashi huffs a laugh. “Yeah,” he replies, “that’s probably a good idea. Medical-nin tend to get a bit prickly if you don’t keep your promises.” He knows that from experience: promising to stay in bed and then not doing that is a very bad idea. Medical-nin take their promises seriously. He’s been yelled at enough times to know that.

Naruto and Sakura run off – Kakashi notes that the genin don’t want to be alone – and they’re dragging a medical-nin along when they return. Naruto and Sakura quickly return to where they’d been sitting before, on the edge of Kakashi’s bed. “This is the medic that got us home,” Naruto says, dangling his legs over the edge of the bed. “She and your ANBU friend Tenzou.”

There’s a certain comfort in the fact that Tenzou was part of the rescue squad; he’s someone that Team Seven can trust. Kakashi will have to thank him later.

The other half of the rescue squad is a familiar face as well. Kakashi recognizes this medical-nin; she’s treated him before. He can link her face to at least five of his near-death experiences. Her expression is just as exasperated as it was last time. Kakashi automatically responds with an apologetic little shrug.

When the medic checks him over, Kakashi’s students don’t move from their spot on the edge of the bed. They watch closely as the medic lays her hand, glowing and humming with diagnostic medical ninjutsu, on Kakashi’s forehead. He figures that they’re being distrustful at first, but then it dawns on him that that’s not it: instead, they look curious. Well. He can’t say that he’s surprised that his genin are taking an interest in medical ninjutsu after this disaster of a mission.

“You should pull through just fine,” the medical-nin says after a beat, stepping back. “It could’ve been much worse, considering that that burn of yours was septic when we brought you in.”

Kakashi tries not to show that those words make something go cold in his chest. He’d known that he’d been sick, but he hadn’t known how sick. He’d kind of hoped that his fear of dying on his students was unfounded.

“You’ll need to stay in the hospital until you shake off your fever and your chakra exhaustion,” the medical-nin continues. “And after that, it’ll be another while before you can get back to doing missions. The cauterization did some damage to the nerves in your leg, so you’ll probably have some trouble moving it for a while.”

She asks him to try and bend his leg after that, to test his range of motion. Kakashi only manages to bend his leg a little; the scar tissue on his thigh is too stiff to allow for much movement. When he tries to bend his leg further than he should, a wave of tingling ripples through his upper leg, the damaged nerves protesting. Kakashi sees the way that Sakura winces at his struggle, and he decides that he should have another conversation about guilt with her later.

“Your leg will probably be back to normal within a month or two,” the medical-nin tells him. “Sooner if you go to physical therapy.”

Kakashi opens his mouth to wave her off, but then he notices the way his students glare at him and pauses. “I’ll consider it,” he says slowly, trying to figure out where that intense look on his students’ faces comes from. “Maybe one session.”

The medical-nin seems satisfied with that, and she leaves Team Seven alone with the reminder that they all need to rest and that the genin should go home soon. Kakashi already knows that they’re not going to go home – they seem to be rooted in this spot on the edge of the mattress, and Kakashi honestly doesn’t mind that at all. It’s not like he’d be able to rest with them out of his sight, anyway.

The room falls into comfortable quietness after that, the muted sounds of rain and faraway thunder the only sounds between them. Naruto is the one to interrupt the silence, his voice soft.

“Hey, guys?” he asks.

Kakashi raises an eyebrow at him. “What is it, Naruto?”

“When all of this is over, can we go and get ramen together?”

Sasuke snorts. “I swear, ramen is all you ever think about, Naruto.” His mouth twitches into a smile. “I’m in, though.”

“Me, too,” Sakura replies.

Kakashi can’t help but smile. “Yeah,” he says, “I think going out for food is a good idea. We should celebrate our success as a team.” He laughs sheepishly. “Though it might be some time before the medics let me leave, so you might need to wait for me a while. I hope you’ll forgive me for being late.”

“Some things never change,” Sasuke mutters, and Naruto and Sakura erupt into laughter.

Kakashi watches his genin fondly. It’s ironic for Sasuke to remark that some things never change, when it seems like so much has changed. Before this mission, Kakashi had never seen his students laugh together like this. They barely seemed to tolerate one another’s presence.

They’ve come so far… This mission was awful, and horrifying, and it made Kakashi genuinely fear for his students’ mental wellbeing. He’d been terrified that this mission would break them. Now, though, as he watches his students laugh with tear tracks still fresh on their faces, he realizes that they’re not broken at all. They’re so much stronger than he thought.

He feels a warm swell of pride in his chest, and he smiles privately to himself underneath his mask. Yeah… Maybe this mission brought them more good things than bad things, in the end. Maybe all the horrors they went through were worth it.

In any case, he has all the faith in the world that Team Seven will be okay.

Chapter Text

A couple of days later, when Kakashi’s body no longer feels too warm and his chakra has gone back to a somewhat-acceptable level, Kakashi makes his way to Ichiraku Ramen to meet his students for lunch.

He’s on crutches, his legs not quite yet strong enough to carry his full weight, courtesy of the chakra exhaustion. He’s not yet back to full strength by far, but he’s able to move again and he’s been fever-free for twenty-four hours, so the medical-nin deemed him well enough to be discharged from the hospital this morning. He’s grateful for that. Long hospital stays have never been his cup of tea.

He’d spent his morning taking a walk through Konoha, to visit the Memorial Stone, Rin’s grave and Minato’s face on the Hokage Rock; he had a lot to tell his old teammates. After that, he’d gone by the Hokage’s office to finally report Team Seven’s mission. Tenzou had already given his own report of the mission, but Kakashi wanted to talk to the Hokage regardless. He needed to demand some things from the Third, and it was much more effective to make those kinds of demands in person.

He knew that he was in no position to demand things from the Hokage – he was supposed to ask for them politely, or not ask for them at all – but everything that had happened lately had left him with no desire to hold his tongue. So in the end, he’d demanded three things, each of them important.

Firstly, Team Seven won’t be sent out of the village for missions anymore, at least not for a while. They’ve had enough for now.

Secondly, Kakashi is now allowed to tell Naruto about his past. Laws and personal feelings had been holding him back from doing that before, but he feels that it’s time to tell Naruto now. Especially since Kakashi had apparently said too much about the subject already, when he was too delirious to know what he was saying. If Naruto has questions about his past, he should come to Kakashi for answers, instead of looking for answers himself and possibly putting himself in danger. The Third seemed to agree with that. There will be a day when Kakashi confronts him about why it was forbidden to tell Naruto about his past in the first place, but today is not that day. It’s more intimidating to wait until he no longer needs crutches.

The results of his third demand, he carries in his pockets. It’s something that he plans to give to his students during lunch.

He almost hadn’t expected that the Hokage would give him what he wants so easily, but Kakashi’s timing was just right for a discussion like this: there was apparently some drama happening in the Chuunin Exams, and it had the Third really distracted. Kakashi doesn’t know what’s going on there, and he barely wants to know. He’s on sick leave. The village can solve its own problems for a while.

At any rate, the Third was in a rush to finish his meeting with Kakashi as quickly as possible, so he didn’t really protest against Kakashi’s demands. Which is great, actually. It’s nice that something is going well, after things have been going horrifyingly wrong for so long.

With that feeling of relief, Kakashi makes his way to Ichiraku’s. It’s a pretty long distance to walk on crutches, but he doesn’t mind it much. The weather is nice, and he appreciates getting some fresh air – he’d been cooped up in that hospital room for too long.

He can hear his students chatter from outside the ramen stand, though his hearing isn’t quite good enough to figure out the topic of their conversation. Their words are lost underneath the voices of the people on the street and the bubbling of cooking ramen. He’s been noticing that it’s more difficult to hear stuff when there are lots of sounds around him; he hadn’t encountered that problem before, because the forest had been so quiet. He’ll probably get used to it eventually.

He ducks into the ramen stand with a smile and a “good afternoon”. His students are sitting on the stools inside. Naruto turns around to him when he enters.

“Hey!” he greets him. “You’re on time for once!”

Kakashi makes a protesting noise, though the exasperation in his tone is fake. “Was it really necessary to add ‘for once’ to that sentence?”

Naruto laughs. “Sorry,” he says, “I was just surprised, that’s all. I was expecting you to be late again, like you always are.”

Kakashi replies with a thoughtful hum. He never really did make an effort to be on time for his students, did he? “I’ll try to be on time, from now on,” he replies as he leans his crutches against the wall and lowers himself onto one of the stools. “Maybe we should even start training earlier in the morning, once I can get back to training you. The training regimen that I’ve thought up is pretty good, but I could teach you even more stuff if we could train for an hour longer…”

His sentence trails off when he looks up and notices that his students are gaping at him. Naruto studies him earnestly, eyes wide. “Who are you,” he asks, “and what have you done to our sensei?”

“Being on time, setting up training regimens, actually teaching us – it’s really not like you,” Sasuke adds with a nod.

“Are you sure you don’t still have a fever, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asks.

Kakashi dramatically touches a hand to his chest. “Are you seeing this, Teuchi?” he asks the ramen stand owner, who chuckles. “My students are bullying me. They’re bullying their poor sensei who’s just trying to make an effort.” All jokes aside, his students each could have died a horrible death in the middle of nowhere, and they might’ve been able to defend themselves better if Kakashi had trained them better from the start. He was a crappy teacher, and he could’ve lost his team because of that. He needs to make up for that. “I will teach you guys properly from now on,” he tells his genin, “whether you like it or not.”

“I guess that’s just another way that this team has changed after our mission,” Naruto muses. “Let’s add it to the list.”

Sakura nods and takes out a notebook and a pencil. It’s a familiar sight; the genin have been making lists of all the things that have changed because of this mission, as a way to help them work through their experiences. Gai had helped Kakashi think up the exercise. It’s the sort of thing that Kakashi himself would have hated as a teenager, so he wasn’t sure whether the exercise would work at all, but the genin really take it seriously. It seems like it’s really giving them a way to wrap their heads around everything, and Kakashi is glad to see it.

They made two lists, one with good changes and one with bad changes. The list with bad changes is a list of things that Kakashi plans to help his students with as well as he can; “nightmares” is on that list, unsurprisingly, and “not trusting strangers anymore”. The very first items that were added to that list had to do with the genin’s worries about Kakashi’s health, although most of those items have been crossed out by now, thanks to Kakashi’s continuous reassurances and his steady recovery. Only a handful of items still remain on the list, now, among which “my houseplants died while I was gone” in Naruto’s handwriting.

Naturally – because these kids are, at their cores, incorrigible optimists – the list of good things that this mission brought them is over twice as long as the list of bad things. “We became friends” is on it, and “we got a lot of combat experience”. “Learned ANBU sign language”. “Stopped dieting” and “learned to make traps” in Sakura’s handwriting, and “learned to block genjutsu” in Naruto’s handwriting. One quiet moment, Sasuke had admitted to Kakashi that this mission taught him to care about people again, though he said that adding it to the list would be too embarrassing. Kakashi gets that.

Sakura writes down “Kakashi-sensei decided to be on time from now on” at the bottom of the list. Her handwriting is still a little shaky because she’s still getting used to moving her arm again, but she’s been getting better.

 “By the way,” Kakashi says before she has the chance to put away the notebook, “I have another thing that you can add to the list.” He reaches into his pockets and takes out three pouches. They make a soft clinking noise as he lays them down on the counter.

“What’s that?” Naruto asks, rocking forwards on his stool.

Kakashi slides the pouches over to his students, one by one. “Your rewards,” he says simply.

Naruto opens his pouch – and his mouth drops open. “Are you sure this isn’t some sort of mistake?” he asks, holding up a handful of coins. “This seems like way too much.”

“Well, the things you accomplished during this mission are nothing to sneeze at,” Kakashi replies with a shrug. “It’s only fair that you get paid appropriately for your hard work.” The Hokage had planned to pay them for just their C-rank mission at the harbor, but Kakashi had argued that his genin took out a missing-nin pretty much by themselves, which essentially meant that they’d finished an S-rank mission by themselves. Not to mention that they helped defeat a group of bandits, arrested three robbers, and guarded Kakashi when he was too hurt to move – an A-rank mission, a C-rank mission, and a B-rank mission, respectively.

It all adds up to a fairly hefty sum of money, and that makes for some pretty hilarious expressions on Kakashi’s students’ faces.

“Well,” Sakura says slowly, “we’ll pay for lunch, then.”

“No need for that,” replies Teuchi from behind the counter. “Your food’s on the house today.”

“That’s really nice of you, and all,” Naruto says, still holding up his handful of coins, “but we can pay for it, you know.”

“Don’t argue,” Ayame tells him, and Kakashi is pretty sure that there are tears in Naruto’s eyes.

Team Seven orders, and the genin chat a little while they wait for their food. They tease Kakashi some more about his decision to be on time from now on. Kakashi pretends to be insulted, but he’s actually relieved that Team Seven’s banter has returned. They spent such a long time talking about life and death – Kakashi had almost feared that they’d forgotten how to talk about normal stuff.

Their food arrives, and Kakashi finds himself pinching himself. The food looks almost impossibly good. He’s never felt this happy at the sight of a bowl of ramen before.

“Thanks for the food,” he says, a little breathless, and he pulls down his mask and takes his first bite of ramen. After weeks of mission rations and bland hospital food, the ramen tastes extra good in comparison.

He hasn’t had proper food in ages, so he eats slowly, no matter how badly he wants to wolf it all down in one go; it’d be a shame to end up with a stomach ache after this nice experience. He’d normally be rushing to eat his food as quickly as possible, to make sure that his students wouldn’t see his face, but he finds that he doesn’t care much about that anymore. They can see his face if they want. When he looks up, though, he sees to his amusement that all of his students are subtly facing away from him. Kakashi smiles to himself and shrugs, and returns to his bowl of ramen.

It’s bizarre, he finds himself thinking. Here they are, eating ramen for lunch, in Konoha. In his most desperate moments, he’d feared that they’d never have a normal moment like this again – yet here they are, with crutches and with still-too-thin faces, but they’re here. They made it out with a bunch of new wisdom and with some cool new scars. Hopefully soon, their bodies will recover and their nightmares will fade, and they’ll only be left with the good things that came from this mission.

Kakashi takes another bite of his ramen, content. They have a ways to go when it comes to dealing with the aftermath of this mission, but the worst is behind them now.

They made it back home, and they survived.

-END-