Regrets and Losses

By Jack Manson

It was the evening after a simple, boring Genin mission when Sakura, twelve at the time, adressed Kakashi in a particular manor for the first time in her life. When he had finally told them they could go home for the day, instead of mindlessly chasing after Sasuke like normal, she went trotting after her teacher, nervous and filled with butterflies.

She stopped him before he could dissapear into his book. "Kakashi?"

He turned around and gave her is full attention, although she could see his hand was hovering over the pocket where he kept his softcore novel. He seemed a little confused that she was approaching him at this time, seeing as how she always tried to get Sasuke to go on a date with her when they were dismissed for the day. He asked, "did you need something, Sakura?"

Truly she was going to answer, and she was going to tell him what was on her mind, but at that moment, she realized how utterly ridiculous she must have looked. Kakashi was twenty-six, making him fourteen years older than her. The concept was ludacris and she bailed immediately, feeling stupid for even thinking of such a thought. Nervously, she replied, "I was just wondering if we'd be going on any more C-Missions any time soon?" She wanted to crawl under a rock and stay there until she rotted away.

Kakashi smiled at her from behind his mask. "Oh, perhaps in due time, Sakura."

The second time she tried to tell him was when she was thirteen. Naruto had already left for training, and Sasuke had abandoned the village. Although she was constantly in the company of Tsuande and Shizune, Sakura couldn't help but feel a little bit lonely now that Team Seven no longer existed.

When she, by chance, saw him walking through Konoha one afternoon, engrossed in another volume of his pecuiliar series, she decided it was okay this time to make her move. She called to him, "Kakashi!" As she ran to catch up with the jounin.

He turned to see who had called his name, and saw none other than his least capable student. "Ah, it's you, Sakura. What's up?"

Once again, she felt herself become aware of the idiocy of her idea. She was at a loss, and thought to herself, if you can't tell him, don't just stand there like an idiot! Ask him if he could spare any time to help train you! Say something!

She did indeed say something, but it was not a request for help with her training, but rather, she thanked him for bringing Naruto back to the village alive, and that she should have thanked him earlier. Kakashi, upon hearing this, smiled and gently patted the top of her head affectionately. "You don't need to thank me, Sakura, I would have done the same for you," he said.

Two years later, Naruto returned to the village, and they reunited Team Seven with only one missing member. At that time, Sakura was fifteen, and she occasionally saw Kakashi wandering around Konoha from Tsunde's office window, and gave him affectionate looks before he disaapeared around a corner.

She thought to herself, third times a charm, as she stolled into his hospital room after they had returned from Suna. She was still quite upset over Chiyo's death, but she would not let the old woman's sacrafice for her go in vain if she intended to live the rest of her life without speaking her mind.

Kakashi was awake in his bed with a very grim expression on his face, mostly from being bored out of his mind. When he saw her out of the corner of his eye, he smiled beneath his sheet and asked, "come to visit your teacher when he's in the hospital, Sakura?" She could tell he was kidding with her, and quickly felt stupid again. This seemed to happen a lot.

She laughed nervously. "No, no, I'm just here to be the doctor." She inwardly sighed and hit herself as she pretended to exmine his exaughsted sharingan. If anyone caught her doing this, she was sure to be in a lot of trouble for working with a patient who was not hers.

He was at ease while her hand was over his eye gently, and his face became relaxed. "Your chakra feels nice," he said quietly.

The fourth time, she was on a mission with him. After Naruto quit Team Seven in order to catch up in rank, the two of them joined ANBU together, pulling Kakashi out of retirement.

They were scouting their perimeter while their team took a break at their makeshift camp. Within the hour, they grew tired of keeping watch for nothing, and rested underneath an oak, leaning against separate sides of the trunk. Kakashi removed both of his masks, but Sakura could not see him for she was looking the opposite direction. He groaned and said, "I think I'm too old for ANBU, you know?" At the time, he was thirty-two, and Sakura was eighteen.

She smiled to herself as she readjusted her leg armor so it was tighter. She replied, "don't be silly, you shouldn't be so critical. You're much more skilled than the rest of this squad."

He replaced his masks in the appropriate layering and gaved her a pointed look from around the trunk. He took this moment to joke with her. "Are you hitting on me, Sakura?" He asked.

Without thinking, she casually blurted out, "a little." Upon realizing what she had said, she, for a fleeting moment, considered telling him what she had tried to tell him several time before. But the idea was almost instantly erased from her mind, and she covered her tracks by adding, "if that's what old men like you want to think." She grimly made sure she sounded blatantly sarcastic.

He chuckled. "A little," he said quietly.

The next time, she was twenty. She stood before his appartment door, ready to knock on it's smooth surface, when he coincidentily opened it, staring at her dumbfounded. He had not expected to find her standing there, for he was merely preparing to go to the store.

"Hello, Sakura." He greeted awkwardly.

She, too, had been too shocked to really say anything comprehensive. "Kakashi," she felt stupid, "I just...I mean...there's something..." She sighed and reorganized her thoughts so they benefitted the current situation. "Today is my day off and I was wondering if you'd like to get some coffee?"

For the briefest of moments, he frowned down at her, senseing that this was not the reason she was here, but quickly accepted her offer. As he did so, he subtly added, "there's always time in my schedual for you, Sakura."

Eventually, she lost track of how many times she tried to tell him and failed, for a number of reasons. But somewhere around the twenties, she felt an arrow unwillingly strike her heart cold. She was sitting in the flower shop with Ino, helping to arrange bouquettes for the customers, when her friend told her something that she had heard recently and had slipped her mind.

"Oh, did you hear?" She asked, looking up from cutting the stem of a yellow rose, "apparently Kakashi and that woman Anko are an item now." She of course meant no harm, she did not know Sakura's feelings, but the medic could hardly look him in the eyes on their next mission, which took place the very next day. He seemed to sense that something was bothering her, but didn't have a clue it was reguarding him. Still, she didn't dare get irritated with him when he tried to cheer her up and only ended up making her feel more miserable. He was not to blame for her poor lack of a spine.

Eventually he gave up trying to figure out what was wrong, and placed his large hand on her armored shoulder comfortingly and half-way joked, "I hope it's not about a guy."

When she was twenty-two, he quit ANBU for the second time. He told her he really did feel like he was getting too old for the elite branch, and he had to make room for the younger, more agile shinobi.

She was dissapointed when she remarked, "I still don't think your age matters..." but there was an entire second layer of meaning behind her words that he was not aware of.

He smiled at her from under his mask. After all these years, she had still never seen his face, but she had accepted the idea that she never would. "That means more coming from you than it does from anyone else," he told her softly. She felt touched, but did not let herself believe it meant anything too deep. After that they shared a friendly embrace, because, after then, their difference in rank meant they would not have another mission together for a very long time.

It wasn't long afterwards when Sakura tried to move on, and became the significant other of Naruto Uzumaki. Their chemistry was obviously unquestionable, and they seemed meant for one another, almost. But more often than not she still felt the sting of unhappiness and longing for someone else. Someone with wild grey hair. On the night of the Konoha Festival, she was once more reminded of this.

The couple ran into Kakashi and Anko on the crowded, lit-up street, and she frowned at their linked arms. Upon entering a conversation with them, Anko broke free of the trio and told Kakashi she was going to look for Ibiki. She reasoned, "you should catch up with these kids." Her words were not meant to be hurtful, but Sakura felt her heart drop as she was reminded of her age and place in Kakashi's life.

Shortly after Anko dissapeared into the crowd, so did Naruto, to chase after Shikamaru and chouji, whom he had not spoken to in awhile.

Awkwardly, Sakura and Kakashi were left alone.

He broke the semi-silence by asking, "how are your missions going?"

They began to walk together through the charming streets as she answered with little enthusiasm, "well, I've been promoted to squad captain."

Kakashi congradulated her, but it seemed somewhat false. Behind his mask, he was frowning, most likely wondering what had happened to their friendship. Their walk and conversation led them into a small area beyond the festivities, which was seldom occupied. None of the people around were anyone they knew in particular.

It was then when she tried again. To tell him what had been on her mind since she was twelve.

"Kakashi, I have something to tell-"

She was interrupted, by Anko, who had found them and come to introduce Kakashi to an old friend of hers. Sakura watched with a heavy heart as Kakashi was dragged away, but she could not bring herself to hate the other woman, although she wanted to.

At twenty-four, Sakura quit ANBU as kakashi had done, so she could work full-time at the Hospital. She had never told Kakashi what it was she wanted him to know, and by this point, she had given up, moved on, and rarely thought about it, for she rarely saw him at all these days. He was not prone to be emitted to the hospital, and if he was, she was never on duty at the time.

As she was exiting the surgical room in scrubs that were drenched with the patient's blood (very often did surgery replace the use of medical ninjutsu, which was often too slow to heal internal injuries), she found him waiting for her.

He somehow looked different, though he still wore his mask. He wore no head band, and his hair was cut a little shorter, making it just a tad bit neater.

"Hello, Sakura." He greeted, with a somehwat awkward smile.

She was surprised to see him, and terrified. She did not want to have a rebound now that she and Naruto had a seemingly perfect relationship. She replied, "hello."

He explained to her why he was there, that he and Anko had recently become engaged and they were planning a wedding for the end of the month. He said, "I'd like for you to be there, Sakura."

After roughly two years, she had convinced herself she had moved on, that her school girl feelings had vanished and she had grown up to think more about her real relationships and her career. She felt anger rise up within her at this sick twist of fate as she realized; she had not moved on. She had just ignored it.

She was disgusted with herself when she agreed, too nicely, that she'd be happy to attend.

He, on the other hand, did not seem entirely happy that she had agreed so quickly. Kakashi placed both his hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. Sakura was dazed, confused, and petrified. She felt like she would burst into tears at any minute.

He told her gently, "this means a lot to me."

A week before the wedding, Sakura found her sleep interrupted by an urgent rapping on her bedroom window, which was next to her bed. Immediately, she figured it was another average call for her in the middle of the night when they needed her at the hospital. This was true, but she was not prepared for what the jounin at her window informed her.

"Kakashi Hatake is fatally injured outside the village gates, we need you to to come quickly, we can't move him any further."

Sakura was on the move getting dressed and grabbing emergency medical supplied from her desk before they even finished speaking his name.

They sprinted as quickly as they could over the rooftops of Konoha to the eastern gate, where she quickly heard orders being yelled in the woods beyond the walls of her village. She sped up, and found a team of five jounin hunched over a terribly wounded Kakashi. The squad's medic was urgently pushing all her chakra into his wounds, although the second Sakura saw him, she knew he was beyond the point of medical ninjutsu alone.

She told everyone to back away, except for the medic, whom she told to keep pumping him full of chakra. From her bag she pulled out instruments that many shinobi were not familiar with, and went to work performing tasks on his wounds and body that she rarely used on any patient.

It didn't take long before she realized he was long past the point of no return. He was loosing more blood than either of them we saving, and she told the medic to stop and give him some room. The kunoichi, barely fifteen, backed away in tears, and stood with the rest of her squad.

Sakura remained by his side, and he turned to look at her with glazed eyes. He asked, "is my face as interesting as you imagined?"

Indeed he was no longer wearing his mask, because at some point she had sliced it off to get everything away from his wounds. But at that moment, she didn't even care, and she didn't comment on it.

"Please don't blame yourself for this, Sakura, there's only so much a medic can do in a situation like this." His bloody hand found hers and he queezed it reassuringly. He whispered, "Before it's too late, I'd like to tell you that you were my favorite student."

She argued to herself inwardly, she screamed, tell him now before it's too late! But she replied, It is too late.

Nearly a nanosecond later, Kakashi coughed slightly, and blood trickled down the corner of his mouth. It was in that moment when his heart ceased to beat any longer, and he passed away. Sakura found herself staring into the cold, open eyes of a corpse, and for awhile, the only sounds around them were the sobs of the team medic, who was claiming she shouldn't have been so weak.

But in truth, the weakest one among them was the one they called for help. She stood up without even a single sign of sadness on her grim face, and ordered the team to bring the body to the morgue at the hospital.

But beneath her exterior she was screaming. She had never felt so much anger towards herself in her entire life.

Fin