Naruto had been on a mission for over a month now.
As the Rokudaime, Kakashi tried not to think too hard about the calendar and the passing of days. He would almost call it easy given the endless list of tasks before him. If he wasn’t signing off on missions or discussing infrastructural expansion plans with his aide, then he was semi-frantically trying to mount a diplomatic counterattack against Konohagakure’s latest enemies: the feudal lords of Fire Country. They had grown uncomfortable with the security and power amassed by Konoha, heroic across all measures: the heroic village in the Fourth Shinobi World War, the heroic Hokage, the heroic Jinchuuriki.
Heroes are dangerous outside of wartime, they implored the Fire Daimyo. Konoha is overreaching already. Just look at those wretched refugees at our borders. Did the village really need such an expansive budget in times of peace, and could they really be trusted with it? Wasn’t it time to levy more taxes on Konoha to benefit the rest of Fire Country? Every time the Rokudaime of Konoha was called to the country’s capital, he could hear the vassals squawking like desperate seagulls from rice fields away.
Of course it had nothing to do with overreach. Tsunade had seen to it that she had crossed every ‘t’ and dotted every ‘i’ on every document that reached her desk before she handed the mantle to Kakashi, and Kakashi had just submitted a perfect balanced fiscal report of the shinobi village’s budget. He had even ordered an external audit, leaving no stone unturned. It was a labyrinthine nightmare, needing to position Konoha in an authoritative position and maintain its hardwon autonomy while proving that it had not grown so powerful as to threaten the nobility and centuries of tradition. While also proving that as Hokage, he could not accept any cuts to the village operating budget; although the financials proved that building systems to facilitate long-term peace were more cost-effective than maintaining a war machine, still there were those who jockeyed to profit from suffering.
The proposed intelligence network was giving Kakashi particular grief. On paper, it was straightforward - better communication between hidden villages could prevent future conflicts and catch emerging threats early. But the nobles saw shadows everywhere. Just last week, Lord Fujiwara had cornered him after a budget meeting.
"You already have your ANBU running around like they own the place," the man had sneered, sake heavy on his breath. "Now you want eyes and ears across the continent? Know your place, Hokage-sama."
The honorific had dripped with disdain. Kakashi had maintained his characteristic eye-smile, even as he imagined how satisfying it would be to demonstrate exactly why ANBU had been so feared under his command.
It was more than enough to make Kakashi’s head spin.
(And almost enough to make him forget Naruto’s absence.)
Now, back in his office, his fingers drummed against the stack of intelligence reports on his desk in an old, indipherable code– an old ANBU habit he thought he'd broken years ago. The persistent ache in his right eye socket, where Obito's Sharingan had once rested, seemed worse on days like this. Sometimes he wondered if phantom pain could be triggered by political headaches.
The last report from Naruto's team had been frustratingly vague. A simple reconnaissance mission in a border town had stretched into weeks of radio silence. If Kakashi didn't know better, he'd think his former student was deliberately avoiding check-ins.
But then there were the other reports. Civilian families whose children suddenly manifested strange abilities. Disappearances that local authorities seemed suspiciously uninterested in investigating. And whispers of laboratories hidden in plain sight, protected by noble family crests.
The status of Sasuke Uchiha had been another sore spot for Kakashi as he stood before the nobles. He technically was still a missing-nin, and there were a few vassals who demanded answers as to why the village seemed to put no effort into capturing or eliminating him. Kakashi repeatedly restated Sasuke’s role in saving their sorry asses (with mildly more tactful language) and that he had yet to identify Sasuke as much of a threat to anyone (worth giving a damn about, another phrase he took care not to say out loud).
The two men typically had minimal to no direct contact, in an effort to maintain plausible deniability of connection. But a recent coded message from Sasuke sat heavy in his desk drawer. "The rot goes deeper than we thought. Keep him away from this as long as you can."
But Kakashi knew better than anyone. You couldn't keep Naruto away from anything for long, especially not when innocent people were suffering.
A gentle knock at his office door provided welcome interruption from his brooding. Sakura entered without waiting for a response, a stone teapot and two cups balanced carefully on a tray. Her expression was the same one she wore when examining particularly difficult patients, concerned but carefully neutral.
"Thought you could use a break, Hokage-sama," she said, setting down the tea service. "And maybe someone to talk to about why you keep staring at that mission scroll like it might bite you."
The corner of his mouth twitched beneath his mask. His former students had grown terrifyingly perceptive.
He considered his options of gratitude and deflection.
“Thank you,” he eventually decided, pushing the scroll away as he joined her at the sofa and coffee table. He recalled a sudden memory of Naruto curled up in his lap there, napping lightly between missions, and he couldn’t help the twinge he felt in his heart. “And this mission scroll is’t going to bite me, but my decision to hold off on outing Lord Munenari’s illegal weapons trafficking might bite me in the ass.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have enough evidence yet to really pin it on him yet, last time I checked.”
“It’s more that I know he’s tied to more than just that, but I don’t know what exactly.”
“Is he related to those autopsy reports you asked me to review? They were…” She blanched. “Gruesome. And that’s saying something when I take exclusive care of Team Ke and the carnage they wreak on their own bodies. And you know who.” Sasuke, she meant, when she was authorized to travel and serve on missions that happened to be on the outskirts of Fire Country. Those encounters were always professional, clinical; she had learned to keep her hands steady even when her heart wasn't.
He allowed a beat, knowing she needed it. To give herself permission to ask the questions she really wanted to know about. “How are they? Have you heard from either of them?” He knew she wasn’t reading his mind, and it was then he realized. While the offer of care towards him was sincere, perhaps she also had similar twinges in her own heart lately.
“They’re both alive, but that doesn’t really answer your question,” he offered apologetically.
She scoffed as she poured the tea into the mugs. The nutty aroma of genmaicha wafted up into the room. “Idiots.” She picked up a mug and handed it to him.
“Thanks.”
They sat in a quiet, shared silence for a long moment on the sofa, both holding their tea cups in their hands. Eventually she sighed loudly and took a careful sip. He looked over at his former student. It had not taken long for her excellence in medicine to be recognized at the hospital, and she was already teaching classes to new medic-nin. Even at the end of a long day, she looked lovely in the dim light of dusk. She kept her pink hair relatively short, opting to pull it back into a ponytail most days. Like the rest of Team Seven, rarely was she not working, moving from her classrooms to Sunagakure consultation to emergency room beds with seeming ease, always with the same focused, fierce expression set in her spring-green eyes. She had come a long way from the girl who fawned over the fantasy of a boy in those early days.
He was pleased to see that softened shoulders accompanied her loud sigh. While he reserved most of his anxieties and insecurities for Naruto, he did always want to make sure Sakura knew she could lean on him too. He had certainly failed by many accounts as a teacher to each of them. But that didn’t mean he had to be a poor Kage to them as well.
“You really haven’t heard from Naruto?” she said, taking another sip of her tea. “This isn’t one of those classified things you have to pretend to be Hokage in front of me about? He wouldn’t at least send an update?” Her tone was both self-humoring and plaintive.
Kakashi shook his head, pulling down his mask to drink. Sakura always politely chose to not look over when they had tea together, despite the fact that she had seen him without a mask a couple times, having tended to him for one medical operation or another. It was a kind, if unnecessary, gesture. “I think he’s trying to keep me out of things in case he’s actually really onto something this time. It’s possible he may have crossed paths with Sasuke; last I heard, he was somewhere out by Oto.”
Now she groaned. “Why do they always leave me out of things?” she whined, and Kakashi couldn’t hide a chuckle. Though her tone was light, they both knew the weight behind her words: how many times had she watched them both walk away, Naruto chasing Sasuke, Sasuke chasing redemption, neither quite seeing how much strength it took to be the one who stayed.
“At least you know Naruto won’t come back empty-handed. He’ll come back with something from Sasuke for you, even if it’s just an update about how desperately he needs a haircut.”
“That’s true,” she considered with a slight smile on her face.
They lapsed into another silence, continuing to drink their tea. It was nice, comfortable. He didn’t know when they began this routine, but Kakashi didn’t mind it.
“Hokage-sama,” she finally said, and he glanced at her formality with skepticism. “I have a question.”
“I may have an answer.”
“So…are you and Naruto like, official yet?”
It took every one of his shinobi reflexes to catch his teacup midair and not spill hot water over himself.
“Maa, Sakura-chan, what do you mean?”
“Don’t,” she warned and suddenly there was an edge to her voice. “Don’t do that to me. I’ve earned more than that.”
He apologized immediately. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She pinched the brow of her nose. “I should apologize too. This is probably unfair of me. But you know Naruto. In some ways, he’s still the same as when we first passed your bell test all those years ago. He’s kind and silly and loving and funny.”
"But he's also different now," she continued, her voice soft but steady. "Being in ANBU has changed him. Sometimes when he comes to visit me at the hospital, I catch glimpses of... something else. Something darker." She set her tea down carefully. "And I know that's partly your doing."
Kakashi said nothing, but his silence was acknowledgment enough.
"Don't misunderstand me," Sakura added quickly. "I'm not angry about you and him. Well, maybe I was at first. Not because of who you both are, but because..." She struggled to find the right words. "Because I thought maybe that's why he joined ANBU. To be closer to you, to understand that part of you."
"Sakura–"
"Let me finish, sensei." The old honorific slipped out naturally. "I know now that's not true. Naruto makes his own choices. He always has. And I know you probably tried to talk Tsunade out of letting him join ANBU initially, or at least watched him like a hawk." She smiled wryly at his surprised expression. "What? You think I don't know you that well by now?"
Kakashi leaned back against the sofa, considering her words carefully. "You're right. I did try."
"And now you're the one sending him into the darkness." It wasn't an accusation, just a statement of fact. "You're the one who has to make those calls, and I..." Her voice caught slightly. "I patch him up when he comes home. When he lets me, anyway."
The implications of what she wasn't saying hung heavy in the air between them. How many times had Naruto avoided medical treatment? How many wounds had he hidden?
"I trust you both," she finally let out, and Kakashi didn’t realize until then that the air had returned back into the room. "I trust that you look out for him still, and I trust that he knows what he's doing. But sometimes..." She looked out the window at the darkening sky. "Sometimes I wish I could follow them both into those shadows. Instead of just... waiting here. Hoping they come back whole."
The raw honesty in her voice made something in Kakashi's chest ache. He remembered suddenly how young she still was, how young they all were, really. Even as the head of the hospital's trauma unit, even as one of the most powerful kunoichi in the village, she was still that girl who wanted more than anything to protect her precious people.
"You know," he said carefully, "being in the light isn't the same as being helpless. Sometimes it's harder to be the one who stays, who keeps things running, who maintains what others are fighting to protect." Instinctively, she met his gaze. "You're not just waiting, Sakura. It’s hard, and it’s definitely unfair, but you’re their center of gravity. They need you to know what they’re orbiting back to.”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she began to cry, laughing at the same time. “It is unfair! Sensei, what the fuck !”
He laughed, a little more openly, as he stretched out an arm to pull her into a side hug. She buried her head into his chest, sniffling softly.
“You’re good. For each other, I mean.”
“Hm,” he offered, noncommittal.
“You never would have hugged me like this before.”
Fair. But he didn’t have to say that out loud.
“I get why you two might not be official. Maybe the only thing official between you two are mission reports and whatever exists under lock and authorized key. But you don’t hear the way he talks about you, Kakashi-sensei, when you’re not around.” Her voice was gentle, almost envious. “He gets so mad on your behalf. I’ve never heard him fret about anyone the way he does about you. I worry when I see those parts of his mask crack and slip at the hospital. But he’s never hiding anything when it comes to you. It’s…it’s sweet.”
He didn’t know how to respond. Suddenly, he felt embarrassed, shy. Gratitude seemed like an overstep.
"Sweet," he echoed, testing the word. It felt strange to apply it to what he and Naruto shared - the desperate encounters in the dark, the weight of everything unsaid between them. But then he thought of Naruto's determined protection of him, his unwavering faith, and maybe...
"Don't overthink it," Sakura chided, recognizing his expression. "Neither of you are actually great with words. Naruto just gets lucky with his earnestness. Which is all anyone really needs, I guess.”
She pulled away from him and smirked, her expression tired, bitter, grateful. “Just promise me that if you keep sending him into the shadows, you’ll do everything you can to bring him back too.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
She propped her elbow on her knee and leaned her face against a closed fist. “I mean. I do get it. You send him into the darkness because you know he can still shine so brightly, no matter how far deep he descends.”
“It doesn’t mean I don’t get scared his light will go out.”
“Yeah.”
She placed her cup gently on the coffee table and clasped one of his hands between hers. “I do trust you though, Kakashi-sensei. I see what you’re doing, the world you’re building, as Hokage. For him.”
“Thank you, Sakura.”
“Just let me help, okay? Whether it’s stopping your overthinking for tea or giving me autopsy reports. I want in.”
He placed his other hand on top of hers and squeezed her hands in response. The tea had grown cold, but somehow the room felt warmer than before.
Whatever was coming—whatever Naruto and Sasuke had discovered, whatever darkness was growing in the shadows of Fire Country's nobility–at least they wouldn't face it alone.