I do not own Naruto. I am not making any money or profit from this story, etc. etc.

A Poor Imitation

Chapter 1 - Memories Lost

This story is for Wildwesternwind, because i owe her a lot, for Wolfiziri because her pictures are so inspiring - especially her ones for this first chapter, and for icarust for prodding me to keep writing what i love and bouncing ideas on this story. Thank you guys.

This is a short jaunt into kakasaku and a little step back into my angst shoes. I hope you enjoy it.

The medic might still be alive…

The sentence ran through Hatake Kakashi's head over and over again in the rough shaky male voice that had first said it while he had loomed over the man. There had been nothing else in his turning mind except those words for the last hour.

The eeriness of how silent the morning was when the snow fell lightly and there was an absence of any wind, played on Kakashi's sense of foreboding. The day was dim, the sun hidden well behind the blank winter sky. The air felt crisp on the small amount of his face that was exposed. His breath rose from his mask like cigarette smoke, curling for a moment in front of his mouth before the next breath came.

His chest felt unusually constricted; his shoulders ached.

It took a lot to make Kakashi nervous anymore. But his heart pounded so hard in his chest, he worried it might be louder than the wet crunch of the snow under his thick boots. He could hear it in his ears, feel it in his throat, strangling any words that he might have wanted to speak – could he find any.

The medic might still be alive…be alive…might still…

He vaguely wished he had never heard it. False hope was the worst.

White blankets of flakes covered everything in sight - the rotted and broken roof of the old abbey, the leafless trees spotted around the area, and the dark gravel below his feet. It was so white, but gray underneath somehow.

Everything before him seemed to set the scene for what he expected to find. Ever since they came upon the first body of that lost squad, he anticipated nothing but tragedy. It was easier to deal with everything if he expected nothing.

He couldn't smell anything but the smoke from a fireplace inside, choking its black ash out of the decrepit chimney on the roof. The faltering bricks looked as though they might crash through the wooden shingles at any second. Someone was there or very recently had been.

With the few other elites in Kakashi's small squad, they surrounded the old stone building tucked away in a quiet corner of the Cloud Country, each taking a point of entry. They had only one objective.

Kakashi couldn't remember the last time he felt so uneasy; he would even go so far as to use the term frightened when he recalled it later in his own thoughts. His fingers felt tight, muscles contracted almost painfully. He'd had to flex and stretch his hands out a number of times.

...might be alive…

Was it wrong to hope?

The side door to the building was cracked and splintered under the rust-red paint that was probably once quite vibrant in the Priory's younger days. A round hole was left where the doorknob used to be, and the hinges squeaked painfully loud as Kakashi slid a finger into the space and pulled slowly. It opened all the way, lurching on the hinges and falling away from the frame just a little. A myriad of footprints soaked into the ground around the doorway told of more than one person coming and going within the last hour.

This image unnerved him the most.

…be alive…

Carefully, Kakashi stepped through the door into a long stone hallway – probably a servant's entrance when the Abbey functioned as to what its name implied. It was just as frigid inside as it was outside, his silver breath wisped behind him as he moved down the hallway.

Stretching his fingers once more, Kakashi slid his thumb under his leather headband and pushed up gently to gaze upon the stone walls with both eyes.

If she was in the building, he would find her.

The floor under his feet was wet from whoever might have walked there in the very recent past. A trail led to a doorway down the hall, but as much as he wanted to rush, Kakashi was never hasty in an unknown situation.

He could hear a door somewhere else in the building slam, and some heavy footfalls, but knew it was his own squad entering at other areas. For now, all he could think about was finding her. If she was alive, she'd probably need treatment.

If she was dead, as difficult as it would be, he'd bring her home.

Inching slowly along the corridor, Kakashi used his sharingan to look for chakra through the doors before easing them open one by one. After three doors, he came to the one his whole body seemed to feel was the one he'd been searching for. But the disturbing lack of chakra beyond the wall made him hope she wasn't there.

With a kunai in hand, Kakashi placed his other on the oak door and pushed. It swung freely, the brass doorknob hanging half off the wood in a pitiful sway. The hinges sighed softly and some light made its way along the floor and walls of the darkened room.

His eyes roved the space quickly, taking in the rusty springs of a cot with no mattress, the dirty tile floor, cracked and uneven, and the chair in the corner with the broken lamp beside it. A hole was punched through the terracotta plaster and something was smashed to glittering pieces just inside the entrance. A body of a man lay crumpled in a corner, obviously dead.

The chair Kakashi had noticed before had restraints nailed to one arm and both legs, and the second arm's restraint seemed to have been torn away, evident by the bent nail standing crookedly from the wood.

It looked like utter chaos at first glance. But the sight that made him hesitate as he eased in the doorway was the shaking woman next to the rusted metal radiator in the last corner he looked at. A resounding tap of metal on metal came from her direction and small white puffs of breath rose above her intermittently.

Without another thought, Kakashi was there, crouching beside her on the balls of his feet. She was slumped to the floor, knees bent and the sides of her feet flat as if she'd sunk down in defeat. The small ting of metal was the thick cuffs around her raised wrists connected on a short chain to the radiator, the chain banging as she shook violently. The usual short-sleeved red shirt she wore was ripped and bloodstained; tracks of dirt and muck ran from the cuffs of her black pants all the way up to her shoulders.

"Sakura," Kakashi said softly.

She flinched a little at the sound of his voice but didn't lift her head, which she'd tucked between her arms protectively. She continued to shake, and her breathing grew louder, faster, and just a little more laboured.

"Let me get these off you," Kakashi said hurriedly as his fingers went to the bolt connecting the heavy cuffs together.

But this time Sakura made a strangled noise as if someone had struck her in the stomach. A glassy green eye peered at him between the strands of her bloodstained hair and over her bruised and shaking arm. She tried to pull away weakly from where he touched the restraints, succeeding in only banging the metal louder.

"What's wrong?" Kakashi hissed, seeing the fear written on her face as she raised her head a little higher.

Her mouth was a light shade of indigo and her skin was like the snow outside. The chattering of her teeth quivered her split bottom lip and her brow creased over her glazed eyes and bruised cheeks.

A bright purple splotch of a bruise started at her forehead and stretched down one temple like a distorted violet. Cuts and scrapes littered her exposed arms and Kakashi swore he could make out bruises in the shape of a hand print on her throat. A torn leather restraint hung on her arm just above the metal cuff.

"Let me look at this," Kakashi said soothingly as he lifted a hand to push her long pink bangs out of his way.

"Don't... touch me," she whispered in a shaking voice.

"What?"

She tugged again on her restraints, this time a little harder, though still weakly. She tried to move her legs to shuffle away from him, but whimpered and hissed with the effort.

"Calm down," Kakashi whispered, tugging down his mask and feeling the cold air stick in his nose and chill his mouth. "It's me. Kakashi." He took her chin gently into his hand so not to hurt her, but not allowing her turn away either. If she could just see him clearly and understand...

Her eyes drifted up and down his face hurriedly, fear blatantly obvious in them as they rested on his sharingan. She shook her head a little and tried to pull out of his grasp.

"Sakura, I've come to take you home. You're safe now."

For a moment, her attempt to shrink into herself stopped and she looked up at him with shock and hesitation. The soft pink eyebrows over her tired looking eyes rose pitifully, and she swallowed hard enough to show it in her throat.

So quietly anyone other than Kakashi wouldn't have heard it, she said "You... know me?"

"Sakura..." Kakashi breathed out in disbelief. For a brief second he just crouched there, waiting for the recognition to dawn on her frightened face, but it wouldn't come. The horrific purple contusion across her brow was making his stomach twist with worry. If she was hit hard enough to damage her memory, what else might have happened to her?

"Yes, I know you," he whispered gently, unable to keep the pity from his voice.

Her bottom lip still quivered and then her eyes rolled up slightly. He could see she was close to losing consciousness. Trying to hurry her into cooperation, Kakashi said calmly, "I promise that I'm not here to hurt you. Will you allow me to take these restraints off you?"

Her glazed eyes flicked on him, but just barely, and she tried to nod but her body began to give up as she swayed backwards. Her arms stretched out as the chain from her cuffs pulled taut, preventing her from falling back completely. A sharp wince of pain accompanied the ringing of the metal chain.

Kakashi quickly slid an arm around her back, getting another whimper of pain from her as her head fell onto his shoulder. She was going to pass out and he knew he needed to get her warm quickly or all their efforts would have been in vain.

"Hold on, Sakura. The hard part is over."

The first thing she felt when she awoke was the pain in her head. The second was the softness beneath her body as she shifted just a little. The crackle of a fire burning somewhere in the room was unmistakable, and the heat seemed to touch the exposed parts of her arms and face. The smell of wet wood burning mixed with dust and mold filled her nose with a damp, strangling stench. Feet shuffled softly around the room and voices mumbled nearby, but the tone was quiet.

Still, she was terrified.

He said my name was Sakura...

Opening her eyes slowly, she tried to make out where she was. The cracked plaster and peeling wallpaper was her first clue that she was still in the same building. Unfortunately, she had no idea how she came to be there, who she was, and how her body came to be in such a state. But her name was Sakura, so someone knew her...

He knew her...

Very slowly, she turned her head to see two men talking by the fireplace. They both wore black pants and shirts, and one had a green pocketed vest on as well. The taller man had long, light brown hair and a long sharp metal stick in his teeth. The other man was leaning casually against the fireplace with his arm draped lazily on the mantle. His hair was the colour of snowflakes and his face was covered in a black mask that came up midway on his nose. She recognized him immediately, although he was no longer wearing the vest he had been when he saved her. The lumpiness of the bundle beneath her head was probably why.

For the life of her, she couldn't remember his name even though she tried so hard to. She wanted to say it to call him over. She was quite sure it began with a K, although she might be mistaken.

But somehow, she couldn't forget his face.

Who they were and what they were doing was a mystery. Immediately the fear began to rise up in her that they could be who had injured her, or that something worse might be coming. Too many possibilities and too many blanks in her mind made her anxious, her body already beginning to shake. Why was all this happening? Who was she to them? Perhaps she should try to escape, but something in her said she could trust that man...

"She's awake," a woman's voice said from the other side of the room.

Sakura's eyes snapped over to see who it was, but of course it was just another unrecognizable face. A woman with short black hair and dark eyes came closer while tightly holding some sort of bag which was rolled up and tied together with leather straps. She kneeled beside where Sakura lay and began to dig for an item within her parcel after unrolling it.

When Sakura saw the syringe, she gasped and scrambled to move away, tearing the light woollen blanket from her body with her sore hands. Clawing at the wood floor, she tried frantically to stand, but found no strength to lift herself. Instead, she managed to scoot a few feet off the thin mattress to a tattered, crimson winged- back chair, shrinking against the soft arm while trying to get between it and the wall.

"Get away from me," she hissed softly, bracing herself against the wall. Her body shook from fear and the chill outside of the warm blanket. They were going to kill her, hurt her again. She didn't want to feel more pain. Her head felt like it was splitting at her temple and her throat felt as if a hand tightened on it as she whispered out, "No more."

The room seemed to go to quiet and no one moved. Only the lack of sound had made her realize there was a quite a commotion just a moment before. Feet had shuffled, voices spoke, a door banged shut, but now there was complete silence.

"Please, no more," she said again as she pressed her face against the chair arm, closing her eyes. Her momentary adrenaline had died away, and she began to feel lightheaded and weak.

"Sakura," his soothing voice said softly from just in front of her. "It's all right now. You're safe."

Sakura opened her eyes, her heart thumping heavily inside her chest, making her feel nauseous and dizzy.

What was his name?

"Please," she whispered to him almost imperceptibly, but he heard. His hand was reaching out to her, just close enough to touch her bare ankle.

"I know it's hard for you to trust us because you can't remember anything, but I promise...no one will hurt you here."

His hand was warm on the cold skin of her leg. His light touch was like fire and she began to fill with a desperate need to get warm again, like the cold had stopped until just the moment his hand had connected with her skin. Everything felt cold except that spot under his fingers.

What choice did she have?

If he had not said her name, she would never have known it.

Slowly, and keeping her eyes locked on his one dark one, she reluctantly nodded her surrender.

The small bit of his exposed face seemed to lose the intensity it had and he expressed relief with a soft sigh and the crease of a smile under his dark mask.

He eased a hand behind himself to reach for the blanket, shuffling forward on the balls of his feet to spread it over her legs. In the same movement, he led himself to the floor beside her and sat against the wall, nodding to the others to give him a moment. Sakura watched them retreat back to the fireplace and begin a low conversation, periodically glancing over.

"It's probably not very nice of me to say, but you know, you don't look well. You've managed to get yourself injured quite badly, Sakura." He rubbed his forehead under his headband with tense fingers. "That woman's name is Shizune. She's our medic and she's a friend of yours." He pointed to the woman by the fire. "She was going to give you something for the pain and to help you sleep. I can't make you take it, but I wish you would."

Sakura pulled the blanket up finding it difficult to grasp properly. The man's hand gripped the edge lightly, pulling it over her shaking arms.

"I..." she said quietly as she turned her head slightly to see his eye. "I don't remember your name."

"Kakashi," he said gently, and she could see a slight smile behind his mask but it didn't reach his eye, "And you're Sakura. We've known each other for a long time."

Sakura tried to read his face, tried to find something she would recognize, but if she didn't know her own name, how could she possibly remember him? "Kakashi," she repeated quietly. "What happened to me?" Her voice sounded frail and raspy, even to herself. "Why can't I remember anything?"

"I wish I knew," he said so quietly that it stayed between them. "But you're alive, and for now, that's all that matters. When we get you home, I'll explain everything that I know. Does that sound fair?"

Sakura could feel the room tilting slightly, and knew that she wasn't going to be awake much longer. The moments of terror and adrenaline had sapped her strength and it was all she could do to stay lucid. He'd proven to not be hostile towards her so far so perhaps he really would take care of her like he seemed to want to. It was all she could hope for.

She laid her forehead against the chair arm and closed her eyes.

Any one of them could have overpowered her at any time. Had they desired to hurt her, there would been nothing to stop them. Giving in was all she could do.

He really did seem sincere in attempt to help her.

The muffled sounds of Kakashi's movement caught her half-attention and she didn't object or fight when his arm slid around her back and the other under her legs. The easy lift of her body caused some pain but again, he was so warm that her fingers, as painful as they were, tried to pull him closer. Her head lay on his shoulder, the soft cotton of his shirt rubbed against her cheek, teasing her with the heat of his body just underneath.

Just as easily as she was lifted, she was brought down to the mattress on the floor and carefully covered again with the blanket. Proving a little difficult, Sakura managed to open her eyes to see Kakashi crouched beside her, waving the medic over.

"Kakashi," she breathed out.

He drew a little nearer, putting a hand on her other side so he could lean over her as she spoke in almost just a breath of sound. His head turned so his ear was close to her mouth.

"Will you be here when I wake up?" Her eyes drifted closed again and she'd had to force them back open.

Kakashi sat back up and gently smoothed a hand over her hair. "Of course I will."

Shizune knelt beside Sakura, giving a solemn look to Kakashi before cleaning an area of Sakura's upper arm with an alcohol swab, and then wiped it off with cotton gauze. She peered down at Sakura and gave her a sad smile before sticking the needle in and pressing the plunger.

A line of coolness crawled through Sakura's shoulder and her chest suddenly felt heavy and lazy. Her eyes couldn't seem to stay open, and before the woman named Shizune stood back up fully, Sakura could no longer open her eyes back up.

When Sakura awoke again it was to darkness and the bland unnatural scent of sterility. She imagined that it would make sense that they would take her to a hospital as she knew she must have looked as badly as she felt. Even now she was in a great deal of pain, but better than before; her muscles, skin and head didn't have the stinging pain of injury and cold that she fought before she slept. Now it was all a dull aching throughout her body, almost tolerable as opposed to unbearable.

The sound of an unobtrusive beep keeping time with her pulse played its boring tune next to the bed she lay in, and the automatic blood pressure cuff would wheeze and hum when it filled. Sakura believed the sharp tightening around her bicep was what woke her up in the first place.

For the longest time, she just lay still, listening to the sounds of the medical machinery while staring up at the tracks on the ceiling that the striped cotton curtains hung from. Movement aggravated the pain anyway.

She was alive. Her rescuers had earned the title and kept her safe. It had been the correct choice (not that she had one) to trust them...to trust Kakashi. They hadn't hurt her, or imprisoned her and even though she didn't know any of them, she felt a little in their debt for taking her away from the horror of which was the first thing she knew. Whatever her life was before that moment had vanished into thin air.

At the mere thought of her situation and lack of memories, the low beep sped up just a little and she closed her eyes to find composure. A feeling of being lost and alone began a familiar climb into her chest, aching there for a moment before descending into the hollow shell of her stomach.

Even deep breaths couldn't quell it. She needed something to grasp onto for fear of being pulled away with the feeling of helplessness. Her hand groped out for the metal bar of the hospital bed to instead touch something warm and human and completely unexpected.

"Calm down," Kakashi said quietly from where he stood beside the bed, making her eyes shoot open. He looked down at her and she could see the concern on his uncovered face. The dark mask he wore last time was dangling around his throat and the silver metal plate on the headband he wore was still sunk down over one eye. "You'll have the whole hospital in here with the way that thing is beeping."

"Kakashi," she breathed out, her eyes wide and unblinking.

He'd frightened her. She had thought she was all alone in the room.

"You remembered. Do you remember anything else?" he asked in a careful tone.

Sakura believed there was a hint of hope in his words, and she felt a little sorry that she couldn't reply to that hope. The only thing she remembered was his face, his name, and the way he took her out of her misery.

She shook her head a little, trying to calm her breathing and will her heart to slow down. He was there and that meant she was safe. She counted on that now, counted on him.

"You must be feeling better. You've been asleep for about thirty hours and the medics have been working on your wounds. You look a lot better."

His voice was calm, lazy almost and completely natural. His tones were deep and soothing and she decided she liked the way it sounded.

"You stayed," she said quietly.

Kakashi nodded just a little. The dark circle under his visible eye told her he was tired, worn out perhaps from lack of sleep. Sakura suddenly felt so attached to him and indebted that she struggled to find words to give her appreciation. But by the way he looked down at her, he must have known how she was feeling.

"Do you need anything? I can get the nurse to get you a drink or food," he said casually as he turned and pulled a chair up beside the bed. He eased into it and leaned back, rubbing his hand through his hair roughly.

"It hurts," she whispered, trying to move slightly and grunting her pain before settling back to stillness.

"Let me get someone," he said absently while reaching for the call button with one hand and tugging up his mask with the other. He stood back up and was at her bedside once more.

Sakura found it a curious thing suddenly, that he would uncover his face for her, but cover up for everyone else. Did he usually hide his face? He was a pleasant looking man, young except for the white hair, so why be so concealed?

He leaned on the rail on her bed so casually.

"You promised," Sakura mumbled, suddenly needing to know everything. She desired to know who she was, where she was and strangely, why he covered his face. What sort of uniform was that he was wearing and what was the curly symbol on his and everyone else's headbands?

Kakashi breathed out slowly and nodded. Evidently, he understood exactly what she wanted, which only made her wonder more things. How did they know each other and why did she feel the need to trust him?

"Yes, I did promise. But you look tired. It's the middle of the night and you probably should be sleeping."

"Please, just give me something. I can't tell you how confusing and frustrating this is to not know who you are and anyone else is." Sakura pleaded softly, terrified that he would postpone his promised enlightenment of everything she was desperate for. She turned her head to the side and glanced at the machine attached to the cuff on her arm. "That machine is called an automated sphygmomanometer and it measures diastolic and systolic pressure. If I get an infection, I can name eight different medications that could be used to treat it depending on the cause. I know what temperature I should put the oven on to bake chocolate chip cookies and I know how to arrange flowers for a funeral, but I don't remember my own name or how old I am. I don't even know what I look like."

"Of course, Sakura. I know it's frustrating."

Just then, a woman slipped into the room through the double swinging doors of the ward, a syringe in her hand. She glanced at Kakashi and nodded. Her soft shoes made no noise as she floated up beside Sakura's bed all with while smiling sadly. "I've brought you something for the pain and to help you sleep. Tsunade is coming by in the morning to see you. We're all thrilled that you're all right."

Sakura closed her eyes. Another name she didn't know. Her head began to hurt more than it all ready did and she closed her eyes to block out all the stimulation of the room, the dim lights and the two people beside her bed.

The nurse proceeded to inject the painkiller into the attachment on Sakura's IV tube and instantly her eyes began to droop and her body became warm and heavy.

"Kakashi please, before I fall asleep," she continued to plead. "You promised."

With a curt nod, Kakashi was again leaning casually on the rail, bending slightly so he could be closer and speak quietly to her. The woman was already making her exit as silently as she had come in.

The tempo of the beeps grew slower.

"Yes, this is home," Kakashi said evenly. "This is the hidden village of Konoha where you were born and where you've lived all your life."

Sakura shuffled a bit, turning over on her side. He seemed a little remiss that he had to recount things to her that she should already know, and he also came across as exhausted but she was too desperate to understand so she was determined to keep him there talking until she had heard everything. But the injection was making her sleepy again.

Kakashi sighed softly. "We are...shinobi. We train here to become ninja and our skills are bartered and sold out to people who require them. We also protect our village and our comrades. You're a shinobi, but a special kind in that you are also medically trained which is why some knowledge of medical things is still in your memory. Your name is Haruno Sakura and I've known you since you were just a young girl of twelve. You're twenty one now."

Sakura's eyes dropped closed and she flicked them open again with effort. "Don't stop," she mumbled and her voice sounded deep and slow, even to herself.

"Your parents live here and you have a number of close friends. You graduated at the top of your class..."

Sakura could only hear the soothing quality of his voice as her eyes refused to open. She could no longer make out what he was saying and before long, she was only dreaming of him.

Kakashi stood back up, cracking his back and shoulder with a light snap. Lounging in a hard hospital chair for thirty hours wasn't pleasant in any way, but he'd promised he wouldn't leave her and a promise to Sakura was never one he could break.

He'd have to thank Hinata for responding so quickly to the call button. Tsunade had told the young Hyuuga that if Sakura awoke in the night she was to be sedated again quickly. It wasn't in the other medics to watch their superior and respected friend suffer so they'd occasionally poked their heads in on each shift to ask him how she was.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had strong hope that she would awake with her memories intact, but her lost gaze took it all away in a second. Although the fact that some things were still there made him feel a little better.

Her closest friends were alerted and were on their way back from their missions, and Tsunade had been keeping a vigil outside Sakura's room for most of the last day or so running back and forth to duties and then returning within an hour. The relief that she was alive outweighed the fear of her memory loss for now. But what would the coming days bring?

And what should he tell her and what should he not?

Kakashi turned and wandered toward the door, noticing Tsunade wandering down the hallway toward Sakura's room as he stepped out of the swinging double doors to speak with her. He needed a shower and some sleep but couldn't bring himself to leave until she had woken up at least once. He figured he had a good six or seven hours before she woke again.

"I was told she woke up," Tsunade said in a quick hushed tone.

"Ah," Kakashi sighed, "She's gone back to sleep. Hinata sedated her as you asked."

"And...?" Tsunade pressed anxiously.

"She didn't remember anything of herself or me before I found her. She retained some memories – medical and trivial things, but nothing that tells her about who she is or who we are."

Tsunade's face fell. "I think it is worse than originally thought. Medical science is wonderful, but the human brain is complex. I've tried to see where the damage is and she has swelling in a few places. I can't say for sure that this is even the cause of the memory lapse."

Kakashi waved a hand toward a sitting area and followed her to the set of chairs near the nurses' station outside the room Sakura slept in. He didn't interrupt, instead giving his full attention to the Hokage.

Tsunade looked through the long windows of Sakura's room while she continued to speak. "The first cause might be the blow to the head injuring her brain and causing a retrograde amnesia, but this one doesn't seem to fit the category of proper amnesia. If this type of injury is the case, time and healing might bring her memory back. The second could be a chemical agent of some sort. If Sakura was being tortured for information, they may have injected her with something to make her talk. She might have tried to counteract it with her chakra and pushed back too hard in her memory centres, damaging her ability to remember. The third cause might be that she suffered something so traumatic that she's suppressed all her memories of who she is, which includes all of us."

"So how long until we see some memory come back?" Kakashi asked.

"It could come back in a moment. It could take a day, month...year. She might get a few memories here and there, or she could get them all back at once. Because we don't know for sure what happened to cause this, only time will tell." Tsunade sighed. "We should brace ourselves for the idea that they may never come back. Her absence of chakra tells me that the way her body functions has been altered. It's forgotten how to produce her usable chakra, just like it lost her memories. I don't know how to fix it."

Kakashi stood up and wandered back to the window, watching Sakura sleep peacefully alone in the darkened ward. He felt his gut twist like it did when he first saw the purple wound on her head.

If only he'd been there sooner.

"Go home and get some sleep, Kakashi. We'll keep her sedated until morning. As I hear it, she seems to have gotten attached to you so it would be better if you were here." Tsunade rubbed at her tired eyes.

Kakashi turned and began to walk toward the elevators, lifting a hand to Tsunade as he left. "I'll be here."

As the elevator doors closed behind him, he pulled off his headband and rubbed his eyes. The idea that who she was had disappeared from existence made him wonder how her life was going to be, or rather how difficult.

She seemed so different from the woman he knew.

In all that she'd been through and was going through, she hadn't cried once.

Thanks and hope you enjoyed it. The next chapter should be up soon. Thanks for reading and reviews aren't necessary.

The rating may change in coming chapters.

Leafy.