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Chapter Text

Fictional Muromachi Period

At the beginning of time, the Haruno clan had snowy white hair. Pure and silvery as the gods had initially bestowed upon them.

Or so the legends say.

Then the Haruno had tainted the world with their violence – their wars and weapons and blood, streaking the cherished land with an imperishable red.

The gods themselves punished them, making them wear the blood they’d spilled on the crown of their heads. A mystic red no other has seen.

‘Do not be fooled by their beauty.’ The streets would whisper. ‘For it is not a red maple tree but a tree that rains blood.’

Haruno Sakura is the 14th descendant of the Haruno Clan. A girl with hair withered pink. A cherry blossom. So ends the Haruno Clan, whisper the streets.

Four years later a son is born. With hair deep red just like Kizashi. It may be the first time Haruno Sakura witnesses her father smile. Sometime later, much later, she reminisces this day as the day she let go of her father.

“Do not falter,” her mother says. “The strongest animal need not roar.”

Haruno Sakura embodies her name and wears her hair like a crown.

***

The Hatake household has served the Haruno clan for generations. But a blunder is made, for what she is too young to know. The household remains because the head of the clan commits seppuku to restore their honor.

Hatake Kakashi is given to her on her seventh birthday. ‘How funny,’ she thinks. To give a person as if he were a cattle.

It is odd that she is given anything by her father. Especially, a Samurai. She is given servants to embellish her like fine china, to not taint the Haruno household. But never something that can give her protection. (Haruno Sakura, one day the head of the Haruno clan, realizes bitterly and too late that it was her father’s intention to rid her, to make his son his successor.)

“Lady Haruno,” Kakashi says, bowing until his head is below her small frame. Lady Haruno sounds like her mother, and while she endears and looks up to the maternal head of the Haruno clan, she demands to be her own person.

“Call me Lady Sakura if you must.”

He is only twelve but has the eyes of a soldier. It is what sets him apart from her servants. He wields his katana as if an extension of his hand. It matches her. She wields her scrolls, her books and her mind. But what resonates with her is the blank state of his eyes. He too has been abandoned.

She is ten and he is her shadow. That is another irony. She is no light, no matter the jewelry she is made to wear; it feels more like shackles.

She lives a life swathed by affluence and people that prey on it. Yet ( or as such), she is a lonely being. Perhaps it is in the law of nature that she is drawn to Kakashi, a stoic – a being never expectant of riches, or glory or life, and by proxy even her.

She talks to him to never hear a reply. (He does but only the otherwise curt Yes, my lady)

That is fine, she thinks. It is better than an empty echo. He earns her faith through his silence.

She learns that he is a master at his craft, a diligent one who feigns apathy. He trains before she wakes, a sheen layer of sweat glistens his alabaster skin. But he is quick to rid it. Always before the other servants wake. Like a tiger's hidden claws.

***

By twelve, Kizashi Haruno takes Sakura to his battlefield of negotiations. To be a Haruno means violence. It is entirely coincidental; her brother is sick. He teaches her of brutality, of words and of money – the world she is forever bound to.

The deal ends with two sliced tongues and one hand.

She does not flinch.

Blood carpets its way for her, beckoning her to dance on it. She does. Effortlessly, cruelly. She is a genius at her craft. She sells weapons, preying on the underestimating, outwitting the cunning.

The cotton candy demon. The world says.

***

Ah. But a deal goes wrong, and she loses her mother. Her only family. She does not falter, at least until she returns to the privacy of her room.

All she has left is her mother’s Haori. It is blood red, blank and shiny silver. Haruno Mebuki was a tall woman, taller than most men. The Haori will forever be too large for her.

How fitting.

“Kakashi,” she beseeches, “tell me a story.” She is met with a silence that is akin to a roaring despair.

It is by the time she puts herself to bed, when her hope of Kakashi uttering a single word is lost on her, that Kakashi starts to recount a story of shinobi, the Kyuubi, and the boy that saved the world with the brightness of his smile.

It’s pathetic. It isn’t eloquent like poems nor imbued with lessons. But it’s pathetic in the way that comforts her. Wise in the way that interests her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I lack in education.”

“It’s fine,” she says, “I like it.”

And thus starts their quiet exchange. She teaches him how to read and write, and he teaches her how to wield the arrow, the senbon, and the wisdom of the streets.

***

She is a smart one, Haruno Sakura. She resembles the late Mebuki that it leaves Kizashi with giddying concern that one day it will be his own daughter to slaughter Kizashi for the Haruno clan. But there is yet a softness there, a softness that may cost her her life, and one that may save his.

He sees it when her eyes reach Kakashi. He is a pretty thing, but more so a better tool. He prides himself in his eyes to find the valuable. He is glad his daughter has the same. She will learn eventually, he knows, that softness will do her no good.

That is fine, he concludes. The Hatake clan will always remain a loyal sword and an even better shield.

And she will be a good pedestal for her brother.

Never cruel or cowardly, he will mercilessly use what he can.

***

There is an ambush like many others that threatens her life. She has to run, run more than she ever did, more than she ever can.

For the first time in her life, she fears death.

Actual paralyzing death. She clutches to the hem of Kakashi’s bloodied kimono, trembling and breath tumbling out of her lungs. Her feet burn, and her shoes dig into between her toes. She smells more than tastes the tang of blood in her lungs.

“Make them go away!” She screams into Kakashi’s arms with no semblance; it may be her first time screaming. Maybe she should have found it exhilarating.

***

There are exactly three times Haruno Sakura changes indefinitely in life. The first is witnessing Hizashi smile, not to her but to her brother.

She grows with spite and feeds upon it. She loses tears, that is her first sacrifice.

The second is her mother’s death. Her only support, her direction is gone. It is also the same day Kakashi and Sakura finally talk – not the curt yes and no. He tells her about the Kyuubi and the boy with golden hair and a bright smile.

He doesn’t end at that. “Take advantage of the opponent's footing, expectations, and habits,” Kakashi says. “Value loyalty. And most importantly friendship.” She snickers at the last notion.

But she takes the advice. And opens another pair of eyes to the world. She takes the neglected – women who are deemed weak, the sick who are deemed untouchable. She takes what the world, what Kizashi refuses.

She takes Tenten under her wings and provides her with all the opportunity she needs to become the great meister she can be.

Sakura Haruno demands as much as she gives. She wants the lightest guns that have ever been made in this world. Light enough for women to handle. Tenten grins like a wolf, with a mania that matches Sakura.

She does not see other women as foes. Beauty is such a fickle thing. Though she realizes its powers as well. She acquaints Yamanaka Ino. She is an informant who hides in her facade as a gossipy girl. Sakura pays her share handsomely. And unwittingly they kindle something akin to friendship.

She goes to the market and buys all the sex slaves she can find. She makes them learn Tenten’s craft.

She takes in men who are considered physically weak. She is lucky; Kakashi has a keen eye for finding talent. He makes Sai an artist, someone who can spread rumors, sell artistry, and fund her projects.

She makes the impossible possible, and Kakashi is her only shadow. He grows to be a man people stare in awe.

And the third is when death brushes her.

***

“Ojou smile. Don’t let the enemy know your fear, do not let your men waver. It is better to avoid fights, and avoid blood,” Kakashi says, while there are her men dying, her trembling in fear.

Avoid blood, the samurai says.

“Coward,” she says, struggling to suck in oxygen but finding her senses against the strong thrums of his heart against her ears, his voice tickling against her skin.

He laughs. “Don’t worry Ojou. I’ll always protect you.” And protect he does. She survives and earns a mask called a smile.

“My Cowardly Samurai, get me out of here.”

***

They play shogi. He is a fast learner. It is a waste to leave him only at war. She makes him read books.

Either way, her life walks the life of bloodshed, a shadow of peril. It’s a relief. Kakashi is a better shadow.

“It is dire that all those who serve me are distinguished, well-educated, well-fed.” She gains more followers.

By twenty she is tired of life, of death, but she thrives in it. The Haruno clan can no longer dismiss her presence. She has kept her act discrete, but there is a limit to that as well.

***

Ah– what a shitty day. She laughs at the thought of Kizashi losing his shit at her vulgar vocabulary. Kakashi might give her disapproving glare. That makes her laugh too but with affection. But she can’t stand their laughing. They’re in a tight spot, cornered into a shack. No that is not what makes her day shitty. It’s the fact she’s stuck with Danzo.

Danzo is a pesky contractor, always out to take her clients and more so her people. Kakashi is always on guard around him.

“It’s been a long time, Haruno Ojou, Kakashi,” he drawls, slithering a smile that wants her to dig out her dagger and slice his tongue out. But that would be a waste of her blade. Also, they are cornered in a shack surrounded by twenty armed men. It would be unwise to fight the two at the same time.

“Well Ojou, we would have to cooperate, and given that your men are more in number than mine. How about you create a diversion, and we’ll go for the ambush.”

With the guns that Tenten has graced them, it is entirely possible to win. But Danzo hadn’t kept his greedy fingers off of Kakashi, suggesting that he’d come over to Root. And Sakura does not deal well when what is her’s is taken away from her.

“Alright, we’ll do that,” Sakura says.

‘Don’t take out your guns.’ Sakura signs to her men. She sees in the faint light Kakashi grinning, lips quirking up. They leave the shed and are promptly greeted by an army of men.

“My men drop your swords! We are five men. Inside is Danzo, only two men. If you let us pass, we’ll leave without a fight!” She can hear Danzo cursing, arming his weapon. She has a smile on her face.

“Consider yourself lucky, women,” a soldier, probably the commanding officer, declares before breaking down the shack door.

They run with a glee that makes the moon seem like it's smiling.

“Kakashi, what are you holding.”

“Child.” He holds up a child by his armpits. He has brown hair and almond eyes.

“Hello, my name is Tenzo.” The polite child introduces himself whilst dangling in Kakashi’s hands.

Sakura hasn’t laughed without inhibition in forever.

***

Word goes into Kizashi’s ears. He knows better than to call his daughter, instead, he goes through Kakashi. In Kakashi’s eyes, this is a temper tantrum with the excuse of Kakashi letting Sakura be in danger. Kizashi rarely cared for his daughter’s well-being. This is to show that he has more power than Haruno Sakura. To think that he used to respect this man disgusts him.

Kizashi is a methodical man; he won’t make sporadic cuts, everything is calculated. He aims for the eye, something so direly important to a man who wields a weapon.

Kakashi is Sakura’s sword, her gun, and her fist. He cannot afford to lose an eye over a temper tantrum. He pretends to flinch, just enough so the dagger slices diagonally over his eyebrow but avoids his eye. Blood spills greatly, covering what exactly has been damaged.

It is then Sakura in blood-surging fury, enters the premise, threatening the Head of her Clan to dare take what is hers and he will pay thrice fold.

It is then another legend is made. Kakashi the Samurai has an eye that should have been sliced and perished that is colored with the blood-red of the Haruno Clan.

She drags him by the hem of his cloth to her room, where she personally tends his wounds. She makes all of her servants leave; she cannot show her emotions waver like a dancing fire. Her jaw clenches, and her eyes burn with white-hot fury.

“Lady Sakura, the blood will seep into your bedding I cannot be here,” Kakashi says, not a trace of concern for himself neither in his words nor voice. It irks her even more. She puts him there, ignoring any form of protest, knowing that he will never disobey her.

Or would he? He never had problems voicing his opinion regarding tactics. But this is an unknown territory, where she intends to, wants to divulge. It is not that they had not known what thrummed between or within them.

“Make me yours,” she says, and she very slightly revels how his eyes widen, a feat she has only rarely observed, and ears blush to a pretty pink. She doesn’t expect him to say yes. But she is surprised that he is unable to say no.

“I’m making it very clear that this is not an order,” she says, looking into his eyes as she wraps up his dressing. She tells him nothing would change, and he would remain her Samurai as long as he desires to. It is very clear by the way his lips twist that he will reply something along the lines of him willing to be there as long as he remains useful but she hushes him.

“Be mine,” she declares, despite her appeal that it is more her desire and less her demand, she fails to hide the extent of her want. She witnesses his eyes burn, his lips tremble and yet something about him is unwaveringly calm as he replies, “Always.”

***
Sakura wants to claim Kakashi as hers, an absurd notion – to claim a human being. But she can do very little to justify what is so primal.

She creates a collar with her teeth and tongue. Scratches and bruises to leave her trails behind him. He, on the other hand, is oh so gentle though not condescendingly so.

Ah, this must be what is to be cared for.

Kakashi thinks sometimes when she demands he stay for the night, that what she really wants is a hug. She doesn’t know to ask, and he doesn’t know to tell. He warms her night with the only way he knows, willing to be there for as long as she likes.

True to her words, within a year, Sakura takes over the Haruno Clan.

She considers wedding the second son of the Uchiha. It is more a strategic alliance, to rid the remaining forces of her brother and father, whilst gaining an opportunity to expand upon her business. It is not desired personally, but it will help her people. Uchiha Sasuke is a good candidate, and she is a good candidate for Uchiha Sasuke. Loyal but not attached. Calculating but not dishonorable.

“Will it make you mad, Kakashi?”

She tips his chin to face her. He leans into her touch, closing his eyes. If it is to avoid her eyes, she does not know.

“Are you disappointed?”

“Never,” he says. Then he answers the unasked, “I will forever be your shadow.”

***

It is only after she sleeps with Sasuke that she realizes how easily her skin bruises. Her milky skin is mapped by the fusion of violence and passion. It makes her wonder how Kakashi, the revered and feared samurai, is so tender, so gentle. And even then he doesn’t lose an ounce of passion.

How odd. How natural. to think of Kakashi even then.

It is very much like him. Like the way he fights – fluid and deadly. Or the way he reads a book, or even a person – seemingly nonchalant but inhumanely perceptive.

She likes the gentleness of his calloused hands. But even then she wishes he’d leave a mark on her. He never does.

***

Sasuke dies in a war. A war that Kakashi wins for Sakura. But even Kakashi nor Sakura cannot win against nature. Tsunami hits, and an earthquake too. And even then Kakashi is there to protect her, fearless yet cowardly, he cannot utter the words that he’s kept in his heart for too long. Even in his last moments.

As if she knows, as she always does, she whispers into his ears.

“I love you, I love you, I love you. Hatake Kakashi. My Cowardly Samurai.”

It rings like a scream.

“My Cruel, Cruel Sakura,” he replies, tears verging to drop. She smiles, wiping away his tears. “I love you.” She kisses his scarred eye. It is the last thing he says and the last thing she does as their walls finally give away, and everything turns to black.

***

***

***
At the beginning of time, the Haruno clan had snowy white hair. Pure and silvery as the gods had initially bestowed upon them.

Or so the legends say.

Then the Haruno had tainted the world with their violence – their wars and weapons and blood, streaking the cherished land with an imperishable red.

The gods themselves punished them, making them wear the blood they’d spilled on the crown of their heads. A mystic red no other has seen.

Then a child with pink hair is born, cruel and cunning, she saves and saves and saves. Brutally so. The gods grant her one wish, whether it is a blessing or a curse she does not know.

Haruno Sakura dies. Hatake Kakashi lives.

He is made an immortal. And he waits and waits and waits until his Lady returns.

Chapter Text

The first thing he realizes is that he’s alive, and Sakura is not. No one is, no one should have. He spends days or weeks or months to find her body. (It is also then he realizes that he no longer needs to eat) She’d wanted to be cremated. He had hoped to never need to fulfill it, had asked her what kind of a Samurai would let his lady die before him.

“A Cruel one,” she had said, with a devilish Cheshire grin that only made him fall for her more.

“A Cruel one,” he says to himself, voice trembling and tears impending as he sees her face one last time before sending her to where he hopes and hopes she no longer suffers.

She leaves behind her, a Cherry Blossom tree, pink like her hair, sturdy like her will.

And he waits and waits, and waits.

***

The birds chirp about the man, or the yokai, or the wizard that has lived for 700 years with face of a man no less than 25 years of age. The man who wears a Haori red, black and shiny silver. The man with one blood-red eye, the other shining obsidian-black that can bend time and space and grant anyone's wish.

Anyone but his.

Anyone as long as they can pay the price.

***

Haruno Sakura loses her parents when she is twelve. Ever since then, she sees Yokai, creatures that resemble something out of a nightmare, creatures that no other human can see. Most are surprisingly peaceful, but some have cost her her part-time job.

The Senju-Uchiha Foundation has supported her handsomely, but even then, she is nearing graduation. She assumes gaining support for Tokyo’s best Med schools may be more of a challenge.

Then her legs move against her own accord, dragging themselves to a house with lush greens and dark wood pickets and an impressive cherry blossom tree. At this point, she’s crossing private territory. She thinks it's one of the yokai and frantically searches for its source.

And shit–a man watches her, bemused or something else entirely. She thinks, for a second, that, with his beauty, and white otherworldly hair, he might be a yokai. He is a pale man, everything white except for his odd eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she stumbles, unsure how to explain that her own body decided to disobey her. “I just, I just stumbled across coincidentally and– I didn’t mean to trespass.”

“There is no such thing as a coincidence. Only the inevitable,” he says, and as if his voice is the gravity itself, she feels as though she is being taken possession of.

“This is a shop that grants wishes,” he says with a tone that is light and a crescent-eye smile that breaks her free from whatever he had initially done.

If this is a contest of how absurd one can be, she thinks she’ll win. And she won’t even be lying. Without preamble or shred of thought she says, “I see yokai. Please help them find their place.”

She expects him to sneer, and deride her with nonsense. Or even try to lure her into a scheme.

Or would he?

He is after all the one wearing a Haori in modern society. Maybe he is something of a Shinshoku? But the place behind him does not look like a shrine.

“This is a shop that grants wishes,” a puppy, a pug, a freaking pug confirms in a voice gruffer than the man. She blinks, suddenly convinced. So there are Yokai, why not a talking dog and a wish-granting hottie?

“Not rid them?” The man asks, smiling.

“They’re not harmful.”

“As long as you are willing to pay the price,” he says.

“I don’t have much money.”

“Mah as for the payment. You can do a part-time job here.”

“For free?”

“I’ll pay 2000 ryo per hour, food included if you want. You can come every day for two hours.” That’s way above the minimum wage, and food included? Was he going to sell her organs?

She doesn’t believe him until she witnesses his craft. The Yokai skitter away, happily at that. He writes her a talisman written on white parchment that lets her be free from Yokai if she so desires. And he brings her an employment contract that her other jobs never granted.

And just like that she becomes free from Yokai, and gets a better praying part-time job than anyone in her school.

***

He becomes an odd fixture in her life.

She learns a few things about him. His name is Hatake Kakashi. Age unknown, most likely not human…?

He is a surprisingly good cook. She can’t cook. The ‘Can’t’ being italicized, bolded, and underlined. So he teaches her.

He is surprisingly smart, solving all her science and math problems before her with a smug smile on his face. Except for history.

‘They got it all wrong,’ he would complain. ‘Jiraiya was a proud pervert but wrote the best of novels!’

‘See if you would just let me read said novels,’ she would say, reaching for the book that he has clearly bound from what should have been from a hundred years ago.

‘You are way too young, young lady.’

He is a master in his craft. Yokai and humans visit alike, beseeching for his help. It does not always end well. ‘One must pay a fair price,’ he says, and sometimes that, exactly that backfires.

A woman comes, trembling and sweating, holding onto an envelope that she has taped and taped and taped until it becomes thicker than one of the dirty books that Kakashi reads. She begs that he rids the picture inside.

“Sakura, stay back,” Kakashi says before facing his distressed client.

“It won’t, it just won’t go away.” As if to prove so, she takes out a lighter, fails at lighting it twice before she finally gets it. The tape burns, and so does the envelope but the picture in it doesn’t. “I tried cutting it and it just won’t cut. Please, please, please help me.”

“I can,” he replies, “but only if you pay the right amount of price.”

“Anything,” she screams.

He burns the envelope with an archaic lighter that is embroidered with a dragon's mouth. It roars and the paper diminishes.

“As for your price,” he says. “If you let any form of video camera film you, the picture that you got rid of will be broadcasted online.”

“You can’t possibly, you can’t, you can’t–”

It takes her half a week to realize that the picture she had hidden was proof of a murder. She is sent to prison.

***

She wonders what life he has lived.

She learns that the Haori he had worn when she first saw him is the only clothing that has colors other than black, white, grey, or occasionally green. Compared to his rather monotonic, single-colored clothes, the Haori is embroidered with bold butterflies.

She wonders if there is a story there.

“Kakashi?”

He hums in reply.

“Was this a gift?” She asks, giving him an open-ended question such as ‘What is this?’ will only give him leeway to make odd stories and excuses. She doesn’t expect him to (properly) answer either way.

“Something like that.”

“From?” She knows she’s pushing.

“A very cruel lady.” He speaks with so much fondness that she forgets to breathe. He had these moments as if he were the source of gravity itself that seized even the particles of the air.

***

Most of his clients are less ominous. Her favorite one has to be the Dream Seller. He calls Kakashi, senpai and has almond eyes that are entirely too symmetrical. He collects valuable stories to feed his dream balloons. The dream balloon, once popped, brings good reams, dispels nightmares, sometimes lets the dreamers see people they no longer can.

Instantly, she thinks of her parents.

***
One day, she comes back from school to see the Dream Seller on the verge of tears.

“You Oni Senpai!” he says to a chuckling Kakashi.

“Mah, mah,” he tries to defuse. Used to his antiques, Sakura does not bat an eye. Kakashi is a great business person, bordering on hell-bent stingy. She supposes she’s lucky that he pays her so well. As if to prove her point, her employer holds five invaluable dream balloons.

“It will be worth it. I only pay a fair price,” Kakashi reminds him, hand (mockingly) at his heart.

The Dream Seller, tears still tinkling down his face, feeds one square artifact into his remaining balloons. It does not pop, as she had thought, but is sucked into the balloon, enriching its color and size.

The Dream Seller sniffles, like an appeased child. “Indeed, indeed. This is an invaluable artifact," he says, appraising his precious balloons. Clearly no longer upset, he declares, "I’m going to have to celebrate tonight at Kitsune’s Oden. Bye Kakashi, Sakura-chan,” he says, waving as he flies away by his balloons.

“Here,” he says, handing her two ballon, one red and one silvery white. She takes them, perplexed.

“Why,” she says.”What are you scheming! I am not going to the Yokai world. Again!”

“Ma, ma Sakura-chan,” he mocks. “I can be nice.” She gives him a deadpan. “Sometimes,” he says.

“You can pay me back with all the money you’ll earn being the top surgeon.”

“The results aren’t even out yet.” She had checked, (only twenty times) for her admission result. He just shrugs, gesturing her to follow him to the kitchen.

***

Sakura thinks, as she slurps on the Oden broth, that when she had met Kakashi, when he had asked her what her wish was, she had wanted to reply that she had wanted a family.

She looks at Kakashi, who has become something more than an employer, more than anything she has ever had. She looks at Pakkun, dozing off on the tatami mat. And the Cherry Blossom tree that he cherishes so much.

She decides then that Kakashi is the best wish granter of all.

***

She goes to medicine school, top of the country. But the place is far, not a distance she can make on a daily basis. The university already offered her one of the best dorms. She realizes then that she had been nervous, not because of her results, but because of not seeing Kakashi.

“You’ve never aged a day,” she says at the genkan with all her luggage that she had accumulated throughout the years she’d spent as a part-timer.

He hums.

“I can still come back, right? I can still work during the summer breaks?” She’s hesitant, and her lips purse, and her fingers find their counterpart with nervousness dancing in her eyes.

“Ma, Sakura. You don’t have to come,” he says, and her hurt plunges down to her stomach. “As a part-timer. You’re always welcome, as long as I’m here.”

She gives him something that is between a hit and a hug.

He is so incredibly warm.

She visits during the weekends and holidays. The days when people usually spend time with families. She keeps her balloons at his (their) place, a reminder that her first home is there with him and her parents.

***

Time passes, diligently and cruelly. She becomes the top neurosurgeon in the country. (Soon the world! Tsunade declares.) She marries Sasuke and asks Kakashi to be her guardian.

“Congratulations Sakura. I’m sorry but I am bound here,” Kakashi says. She knows, she always has known, he doesn’t leave the place. She knows deep down that he is not human.

“I know– I just still, please take it. You’re very important to me.”

“Okay,” he says.

***

When she becomes a world-renowned doctor, a mother to a brilliant child, and the wife to the great Uchiha Clan, she has very little time to visit Kakashi.

And the time comes.

Eventually.

And cruelly.

Sarada gets into a car accident. A shrill ringing invades her ears. She knows from her years and years of experience as a surgeon that her daughter is in death’s clutches. The ambulance has only one spot for another, she makes Sasuke take it.

“I’ll bring her back,” she tells him.

She runs and runs and runs. She’s lost a shoe, and her clothes are covered in her daughter’s blood, but she cannot stop until she sees the familiar wooden pickets.

“Please save her,” she cries, clutching onto Kakashi’s strong frame.

“Sakura–”

“I know I know!” She’s hysterical. She knows, she knows every wish follows an equal price. A life for a life. Of that much, she knows.

“Just save her I can’t Goddamnit I don’t care what happens to me!”

“Okay,” he says, he holds her back and brings her into a hug.

She gets a phone call. She’s fine, seemingly by some Devine Sarada’s blood irreversibly lost had seeped back into her. Her legs give out, but Kakashi catches her.

He holds her there for a moment.

“Sakura go to the hospital,” Kakashi says. “Take Pakkun with you.”

***

He waits until she is out of sight to collapse

Sakura regrets that day for the rest of her life. Maybe not for Sarada but For not saying thank you or –

When she confirms with her own eyes that Sarada is alive and well, and smiling so brightly as she always has, she knows that she can face death.

“You won’t die,” Pakkun says.

“What do you mea–”

She runs, once again, not trusting herself to drive when her fingers tremble. She doesn’t find Kakashi in his house. Not in the garden, not in the bathroom, not in the kitchen where they’d always joke about her salvaged cooking skills. He’s not here.

She finds only the balloons she had left.

***

Was this a dream?

“Mah- you shouldn’t be here,” a familiar voice says from the dark. Kakashi.

Kakashi stands there, next to the Cherry Blossom tree, wearing his Haori and a smile. He’s leaving.

“Kakashi please I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please come back. I’ll do anything–”

“The time that had stopped is only now moving forward, and I’m moving with it,” he says, like a gentle explanation of a recipe.

“Please.” Her voice trembles, and her vision clouds with tears. Her body is sluggish, but she moves forward until she reaches him. She holds onto his arms, and brings him down to an embrace, so he can’t leave. He can’t leave.

He hugs her back but the warmth of him is gone, not cold no temperature. Like withering autumn leaves.

“Sakura,” he says, voice so gentle that it hurts. She shakes her head into his body, denying what is to impend.

“Sakura, please look at me? This may be the last time.”

How can she deny that? She looks up at the red and black orbs of his eyes, hoping that he won’t disappear. She swallows a shuddering breath.

“Kakashi what is your wish?”

“I’ll grant it. Even if it takes me a thousand years.”

He ducks down and kisses her forehead.

“For you to be happy. Sakura, My cruel lady”

***

She wakes from the tatami mat, clutching onto his Haori.

She cries at the familiar scent. She cries in fury and overwhelming sadness.

But she puts the slightest of her hope on his final words.

“I’ll see you again. Sakura, My cruel lady.”

Chapter Text

When Kakashi perishes, he leaves the Haori with Sakura.

“You caused a paperwork disaster,” his old friend hisses. “You traded your life, your immortal life of 700 years old with a 7-year-old! This bureaucratic limbo will take at least 19 years to sort out!”

“The superstition of the number 9?” Kakashi laughs.

***

When Haruno Sakura lives her life to the fullest, she is surrounded by those she loved as she breathes her final moment. She asks to burn the Haori with her, Sarada smiles, knowing of her mother’s attachment to the particular drapery. She is all grown up now, pretty and bright as always. She stays strong for Sakura, even as tears fall from her face.

When the world fades to black with Sarada’s smile the last thing she sees, she is brought to consciousness.

A distinct scent fills her nose. A man dressed in all black grinds tea leaves.

“I am the messenger of Death,” he says, lips curling into a smile.

*
*
*

“One more fork please.”

Kakashi weaves through the clutters of tables that boast of food and sparkling wine, successfully delivering the wanted fork whilst recommending menus. The sky is a spotless azure; a clear day that rewards him with a gentle wind. He cards his silvery white hair as the wind ruffles it, earning hungry eyes from a few young women.

“Sukea-san you sure got used to everything!” Ayame beams.

Teuchi’s head peaks out of the kitchen. “You’re always welcomed to stay longer Sukea-san.”

He smiles gratefully but not apologetically. He’ll be leaving today; he already got what Lady Senju demands.

His shift ends in the afternoon. The start of fall illuminates the sky brightly but there is something more softer about it. He trades out his waist apron for his satchel, a manila folder with his daily paycheck, and a bag of food Teuchi-san made for him. They’ve been generous with him, and from observation, they are generous people.

So it puts him in a difficult situation when some young women wait for him at the backdoor, beseeching for a date with puppy dog eyes. They are adorned with twinkling jewelry and puffy dresses that remind him of those round choux pastries. Regardless of how ridiculous he finds the modern fashion trends, it is a stark contrast to his peasant white shirt and simple black slacks. Or the assassin gear in his scrolls.

He thinks of a few excuses but settles with an apologetic laugh and a scratch to the back of his head. He worries when they don’t show signs of relenting.

He formulates a few words, “I have a toad to escort.” There is a distinct pause at how horrible his excuse is until they all turn into a fit of laughter.

“Oh, you silly man,” one of the girls giggles with merriment twinkling in her eyes.

Great he’s entertained them now. Now if only there were an actual frog–

“Gribbit.” A voice croaks behind him.

“Sorry girls,” a distinct voice purrs. “I’ve been looking for him for centuries.”

“The White Mage Sakura,” one girl mutters under her breath before they collectively swoon at her presence, and frankly so would he – if his mind hadn’t supplied the lists and lists of her dangerously impressive capabilities in the Bingo Book.

Said woman is a newly formed legend, the Protege of Lady Senju, the first to master and perhaps surpass Lady Senju’s White Magic. Rumors drape her presence; she is said to be one of the Rememberers, or so the world speculates to justify her inconceivable achievements, and apparently an owner of a moving castle.

His ever–so–quick mind calculates the dangers of the woman and concludes that he is lucky to be on the same side as he turns to face the mystery woman.

Sakura is a woman with pastel pink hair to prove her name, and eyes that shine in emerald green. If the two distinctive colors clashed, it was the graceful beauty of hers that harmonized it. She wears a red Haori with silvery butterfly embroidery over her standard Royal uniform. Black utility suit pants and a simple white dress shirt never looked so good.

Eyes up Hatake, he chides himself.

He mentally reminds himself that he should change before reporting if doesn’t want another brick to the head.

She gently takes his arm, and he offers it easily.

“Sorry,” she whispers, “I’m being followed.” True to her words, there are white blobs that dress in blue cloaks and serpent eyes. His eyes narrow at the offending familiarity of their presence. Memory Eaters.

She leads him to a corner to super jump, he is helplessly followed, shooting up to the sky like some man-made cannonball. Leave it to Lady Senju’s apprentice and his up in the sky. Having mercy on both of their ankles, he summons a bit of wind to stay up in the air, it is as though they are flying. What he doesn’t expect is for her to laugh gleefully.

As if they aren’t being chased by memory-hungry blob monsters.

Well, he might be at fault there.

While Haruno Sakura might not be a Rememberer, he is. At least, partially. There has been no precedent, at least that is known, that remembers the full extent of their past lives. He, for one, remembers none of his life, just old magic, incantations, and forgotten knowledge, though that is what makes the Rememberers so valuable; they are born with experience before having any. It is also a reason why there are creatures that lurk for said invaluable knowledge. And the subsequent reason for Rememberers being solo fighters, and yet simultaneously somehow taboo for revealing if they are. But that may also be because the Rememberers never do end with a good fate.

He remembers Lord Jiraiya, how he’d become a prisoner of his own past, had slowly withered into the sea.

And of course, Hatake Kakashi never is one to follow social conventions. It’s easier to lie when it is closer to the truth.

“Maa sorry, might have caused that,” he says, giving her an apologetic smile to facilitate the blow. He expects some form of surprise or some snide remark. Instead, he gets something calm, no something that is disguised as calm. It is tentative and curious underneath, but there is something more unidentified.

“How much do you remember?”

Surprised by the casualty of her reaction but ultimately not letting it show, Kakashi replies with his professed answer, “Bits and pieces. Just enough to know some ancient spells.” It’s an easy out. Yes, he is a Rememberer. Yes, he knows some spells. No, nothing about his personal life.

She hums. Curious he asks, “You?” He doesn’t expect an answer, but he throws it her way anyways.

“All of it,” she says like a confession and it is then he realizes that they are holding hands, or more like she has an arm around his waist, and she is holding his other hand. (He doesn’t bother to remove it) Her hand is surprisingly calloused for a White Mage, and strong but ultimately gentle.

Peering into her eyes turns out to be an enchanting experience. Not how her eyes look like an enchanting emerald, but how she looks at him. Like an imprint, her warmth sears him, and he wants to look away but simply cannot.

“Yup, then this is definitely all your fault,” he manages to say with a slight nudge. It earns him a ring of laughter, that dispels whatever thick had been between them. Perhaps it was the secret sharing.

“Not to fear, My Cowardly Samurai. I will protect you with my life,” she solemnly mocks.

“Very chivalrous.”

“I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” Another solemn mock. Oh, she did not just quote Icha Icha tactics?

She gives him a Cheshire grin, as she rips (yes rips) a slab of rock when he perches them on one of the rooftops. She aims it at the monster and hits strike after strike, one which breaks through –Oh shit that’s his house. He summons sealing magic to bottle them up in a sealing vial with a sigh.

“Have you done this before?” She asks.

Now, he thinks, should be about time to confess that he is coming back from a 3-year undercover mission and that Sukea is an alias.

“Just kidding, nice to finally meet you, Hatake Kakashi.”

She was rumored to be the witch to eat out hearts.

Maybe the rumors weren’t so fallacious after all.

***

Kakashi likes Lady Senju for many reasons, one of which is that she is not for mushy feelings despite not seeing each other for half a decade. But is considerate enough to tell him that his house has indeed been broken by the cotton candy protege demon of hers and that Tenzo is out on a mission. So considerate that she gives him a grin, a wide one at that.

“You can demand your reimbursement from my not-so-genius Protege.”

“I can offer you my home,” Sakura says, voice all serious and eyes dancing in mirth.

“I–wha”

“Dismissed.”

And they are promptly kicked out of her office. She grumbles something about having to renew seals to ward off the Memory Eaters. It makes sense, he thinks upon consideration, that Lady Senju places him in the house of another Rememberer. His ward spells must have required several tweaking after all these years. He’s heard rumors about the dimension-hopping house that moves restlessly. Civilians thought of it as a mysterious force. Many mages considered it an admirable feat. Some made the connection that it was made to avoid Memory Eaters.

Regardless of her true intentions, it would help with the Memory Eaters.

***

“Well, we’ve shared a secret,” Sakura says. Ah, so they did. Rememberers. And will leave together apparently, Kakashi thinks.

“It’s only natural we get dinner.”

***

He stares at her, baffled. She in unadulterated glee, pops another bite of mozzarella ball in her mouth, wiggling her pink eyebrows as if adding salt to the wound. She’d dragged him through the mazes of the alley, where the roads groan and stone shift to its own liking. And promptly placed him in a bar that somehow had the best pizza and mozzarella balls.

“Told you you’d like it. It’s not that you don’t like sweets.” She jabs a fork in his direction, somehow gracefully, and then continues, “You just don’t like artificial ingredients.”

***
True to her words, she brings him to her place, thing or–
The thing – or some bug of a castle – moves, gears groaning and creaking. It’s majestic in some odd archaic way. Haruno’s Moving Castle they say. She pulls down on the doorknob placed in the butt of the thing. Security is surprisingly low.

“Welcome back,” a voice crackles at them. He hadn’t sensed a person. Perplexed, he turns toward the voice to find a fire with googly eyes. Magical beings in a magical castle.

“Arara,” the fire seems intrigued, “what brings such a humble person to my majestic abode.” The place is adorned with cobwebs and sheeted with dust. The natural light, granted by the half-sphere windows atop its main entrance, illuminates the specs of grey and black dust that float in the air.

“Sorry,” Kakashi has the decency to state, “didn’t seem so majestic.”

Sakura snorts out a laugh, swatting at him. “I’ve been on a mission.”

“That’s Tobi, and that’s Pakkun.” She points at a little boy, snuggled up on the couch, wearing a green cloak. He senses some enchantment there.

***

Living with Sakura isn’t simple, or easy. She isn’t a morning person, and cannot for the life of god cook. Only so many people can both undercook bread and burn toast to a block of coal. She is called in for her Healing Magic at the most inconsiderate times of night via a grumbly fire or worse actual humans. She’s a tidy person but has a peculiar way of balling up her socks, it secretly drives him crazy and by the devilish grin she gives he’s sure it’s not much of a secret.

She has pretty good taste in books, not everyone knows the true value of Icha Icha. And while she can’t cook, she finds the best restaurants in town that aren’t crowded or overly expensive but claims that he has the best recipe in town.

“Maa, you’re just saying that so you won’t have to cook,” he says, deflecting the compliment. But his traitorous ears burn a hot pink to match her hair.

“Ah, you’ve caught me,” she says, lips beautifully adorned with a smile and eyes twinkling like a star.

She’s attached to the Haori. She doesn’t wear it often, uses it more like a blanket to drape it over her when she reads books or has night terrors. And a picture book about a child that saves the world with the smile of his Nine-tailed fox as his friend. It’s not the book she adores but the story, he quietly realizes, as he observes her buying yet another of the same story with different wordings.

He confirms one of the many rumors that are afloat with her name. She’s made this castle from scratch. Even the seals placed in every corner of Konoha weren’t enough to fend off Memory Eaters, she explains. He supposes it’s plausible, Memory Eaters were always more attracted to ancient knowledge and she, if what she had claimed was true, happened to be their favorite type of feeding.

She owns a pug that can speak, who turns out to be the little boy, Pakkun. And has a magical portal of a door that has a small dial to indicate where it will lead to. He cannot help but be humbled, he had thought he was one of the leading magicians in space magic. But never had he been capable of turning a door to several portals.

One of which leads to a Cherry blossom tree, magnificent in its height and width. It must be several hundred years old. “It’s a nice drinking place,” she says. The blossoms have withered but he can easily contest her statement.

They become partners, somewhat. He remembers why having a mission partner makes a mission more bearable. Of course, there is the additional manpower that facilitates the mission. (And Haruno Sakura is a force to be reckoned with.) But oh how much he missed the occasional banter, the shared meals, and snide eye contact while zeroing in on a target. It’s not something that comes easily, it shouldn’t be something that comes easily.

But they do. In some odd sense.

Their compatibility is natural, he guesses. Given that they both attract Memory Eaters and neither have one to blame.

They find an easy pattern in their lives. The day back from a mission is take-out night. The night before a mission a feast. They go on random walks, listen to live music on their days off and go down the shopping alley that shifts and turns at its own will with its stones sliding and graveling.

She is an impressive mage and no less entertaining.

She somehow manages to navigate herself without activating her sensing energy or using the finger-biting enchanted maps that circumvent the changing roads. She leads him easily by the hem of his shirt, which he corrects by holding her hand. If she realized, she doesn’t mention anything, but he thinks he catch a glimpse of a smile and a rosy blush on her cheeks before she leads them to a magical creature-inspired bakery.

It smells heavenly. Organic and fresh.

“How are you doing this?” He asks, incredulous. She’d done it when they’d first met.

“I listen to my guts of course,” she says, eyeing a particular pastry that looks too sweet for his taste but is sure that Sakura would love. He picks it up from the shelf to add to their tray.

“Your gut,” he deadpans.

Her stomach growls, and her cheeks blush into a cute red.

“And your gut has spoken,” he teases.

They work on more complementary magic to master their jump-flying technique.

Their flee jumping flutters into something of a butterfly. (and so does his heart.)

Kakashi is notorious for being lazy, though that isn’t entirely true. It’s because he’s compared to Gai for the most part, and he prefers to be on the solitary side of all things when he lets his energy flow – for fairly obvious reasons.

He prefers theory to execution. He’s never had a problem with executing things. And it saves his energy flow, and mostly he can avoid potential Memory Eaters from attacking anyone around him.

And yet with Sakura, he executes, holding her hand and then her eyes. They walk across the night sky is a bruised purple, healing from whatever red it had been scorched to, the city lights flutter to life, and the low-hanging clouds part and slightly wet the hem of their pants with their water. It’s a pretty sight, the sky and the city of Konoha below it.

But it's nothing against her natural beauty. Her fingers that brush against his, or the lush forest green eyes or the petal pink of her hair.

He must have been lost in his thoughts.

“It’s like you’re a missing child or a wandering cat,” she chides. “You’re so easily lost in your thoughts these days. What’s gotten into you?” She laughs, teasing in good humor.

And at that moment he considers saying, ‘You.’

“Here,” she says, flicking at her Haori to entice a small silver butterfly in its embroidery to leave the fabric. She’s careful as she perches the butterfly on her hand, blowing gently until it morphs into a ring. He catches her hesitate, ever so slightly, on his ring finger and pinky, and before he can give her his ring finger, she sends the butterfly to his pinky.

“A cat collar,” she beams. He lets out a laugh. He nearly forgets to summon just the right amount of wind to continue their flight.

When he lies on his bed that night, he finds one thread of red string that dances upon the silvery waves of the ring.

He stays because he had to. He doesn’t leave by choice.

***

They’re drinking sake in wide red sakazuki cups in her secret drinking place: the Cherry Blossom Tree that matches her hair perfectly. She drinks with eyes that are brimming with nostalgia as she traces the tree with her calloused fingers. He feels out of place, as if he’s peering into something too personal. Then her green eyes and pretty lips face him and the sensation disperses and burst into pink petals.

“Have we met before?” He asks. Sakura is horrible at playing cards, her emotions displayed to him like a theater play. But there are moments like this when he is on the other end of the stick; she doesn’t let a single emotion show, only a gentle smile.

“That’s a terrible pickup line.”

“You know what I mean,” he says. He’s always been suspecting.

“You won’t even tell me about your past in this life. Unfair trade don’t you think?” She clinks her sakazuki to his. A pledge of loyalty or something the royals like to state.

He thinks of his old team, of Obito and Rin. Of the first of whom who had accepted him for who he was, and consequently had to pay the price. If only he knew he was a Rememberer then, would they have survived? If only–

A warm hand takes hold of his arm, linking it and pulling towards her so he can rest his back against the tree, and his head against hers. She knows better than to offer words of consolation, instead, she offers her shoulders and her presence.

They make a pretty good team.

***
A war doesn’t stop them. But magic clashing with magic never does end well. It creates collateral damage that causes the earth to shift and the sea to rise. Sakura at the expense of her life, stops it, saving the city. She’s going to be swallowed in her own sea of memories, and he can’t do anything but watch as she slowly loses the life that she has in the present, swayed away by the past.

Lady Senju grips his shoulder.

“Can’t you do anything?” He asks, clearly knowing the answer but wanting to grab at some semblance of hope.

“It’s the curse of the Rememberers. You use too much and you’re lost in your own powers.” He scrunches his eyes shut, holding onto the hospital sheets of Sakura’s bed.

She sighs. “Jiraiya didn’t die because of it,” she looks away. “I did,” his head which had been lowered to watch Sakura’s frail frame, snaps up to Tsuande. “He died saving me.”

“Lady Senju, please.” He begs.

***
She tells him about Jiraiya, how he’d used their shared memories as a guiding line down to hers. Of their pasts and his incantations.

She tells him about Sakura. The Sakura in this life but the one before meeting him. She’d always been a genius, even before “Remembering.” She had already mastered the sorcery of the White mage by seventeen, and it was on her eighteenth birthday that she’d made a contract with a fire demon that made her Remember.

It had been the time Kakashi had been sent on a series of assassination and information-retrieving missions along the borders of Konoha. It got her kicked out of the Royal system, but she had saved too many lives to be deemed a traitor. She’d had to prove her loyalty all over, but she did with time.

“Kakashi to make a pact with a demon, you have to give something. Find it, find what Sakura gave. Use it as a guide to enter her mind.”

***

He warps back to the castle, nearly tripping as he runs to the fireplace. Pakkun follows at his feet.

“Tobi, Sakura’s heart. I need you to give it back to her.”

“Very well then,” the fire agrees easily. “I need something that is yours.”

“Will this be enough?” He summons a bit of healing magic to take out his left eye.

“Yes.”

And the socket of his eye burns into a crimson red.

***

Tobi guides him through his eye, and he swims into her memory. He learns.

She wasn’t running away from the memory eaters. She was finding him. He’d been an Anbu for decades, only lived in the shadows.

Then time folds and stretches. He knows instinctively that this is a different universe.

“Tell me a story,” a child, a child with a voice younger and weaker but definitely that of Haruno Sakura begs. He waits, expectant of a person to whom she’s addressed to reply. But he doesn’t sense anyone. By the time he considers that his magic is askew, he realizes that he should be the one replying.

He tells her about the boy who saved the world with his smile, the nine tails that the humans were so afraid of but was in the end no different from him or her.

And time shifts.

He is sent to a tea shop. He is a spectator.

She’s in a tea shop. She enters as a grandma. Her hair is no longer pink but a silvery white and her eyes a faded green and even then he recognizes her by the brilliance in her eyes, the gentleness in her smile. He can tell by her laugh lines that she’s lived a good life, just as she promised. When she sits, she’s no older than the last time Kakashi has seen her.

“I am Death’s messenger,” another voice crackles.

The conversation is butchered, like fizzing radio.

“Tea that will make you forget. Let you move on to the next life.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You’ll suffer.”

“But I’ll remember.”

“Yes.”

From the fraying blocks of noise, he catches her clutching onto the Haori.

(The man smiles, even after all this time?

Did you know Kakashi?

He was a friend. Immortals get lonely. He shrugs.)

“Let’s make a bet. That you’ll wish you drank the tea. And until then I’ll lend you a part of me.”

“And the price?”

“How about your heart?”

“What is your name?”

“Tobi from now on. I wish you the best,” he says, but it is directed to Sakura but to him.

“Obito.”

“Took you long enough,” the voice laughs in his mind. “We’ll talk later,” he says. “First Sakura.”

First, Sakura.

The world morphs again.

It’s the same Cherry blossom tree. But it’s evidently younger. And he’s wearing her Haori, and she’s in his embrace, tears streaking down her face. Death is instinctive, he knows this is the last breath he has left before parting with this Sakura.

“I’ll see you again. Sakura, My cruel lady.”

And he remembers and remembers and remembers. Memory overloads him, causing his vision to blur, and oxygen leaves his lungs. He feels too much and processes too little. And he remembers how Jiraiya had left. Obito yells, “Wake up! You’re going to get swallowed!”

A silvery butterfly crosses his path. The singularity of it in this dark dark space of limbo lets him focus. The butterfly is steady as if letting him catch his breath. When he finally does, it drifts away, leaving trails of a red string that ties to his pinky.

He walks and walks and walks, until finally, he finds Sakura.

His Sakura.

“Kakashi,” she smiles. “Take me home.”

***

When he wakes, Sakura is there, peering up at him with curious eyes. She’s still connected to healing cords, and the room still reeks of antisceptics, and beeps her heart rate.

But oh oh oh she’s alive.

“Sakura?” he croaks, mouth parched. He wonders how long he’s been out.

“Gribbit.” It takes him a moment to process but eventually huffs out a laugh that morphs into a cough.

“Are you okay?” Was he okay?

“You Cruel Cruel woman,” he says. She smiles with something veneered of understanding and underneath it an emotion he knows all too well.

“I love you,” he says.

Sakura shifts on the bed to make space for him and holds her arms up with pouty lips and the same familiar mirth that dances in her emerald eyes. And he sees all of his eternity there.

How could he ever deny her?

When they’ve settled down, embrace unbroken, and breath no longer an overwhelming shudder, she says, “I’ll resign to release you.” And before he can protest, she continues.

“One day, I’ll resign to release you. In the next life, or the next or the one after, or in a different universe, I’ll resign to release you. And we can meet as strangers, create something new or do everything all over again. Or maybe you’ll be with someone else,” she teases, pecking a kiss on the corner of his lips with a small laugh at his frown.

“We’ll meet without our twisted fates and time and space. We can meet in a world where there is no magic and monsters, undoubtedly boring but safe, and we’ll get–”

She smiles, stopping herself from sobbing. “But in this one, in this lifetime, this is ours. I want to remember all of us.”

Without a doubt, keeping their memory will come with a cost. But well–

“Sakura, My Cruel Lady, as you wish.”

***

They live and live and live.