“My wife is sick.” Sakumo wasn’t sure if she could help him, or that he should tell her, even if she was extremely friendly, and had healed him, and his teammates as soon as she saw him.
A woman in a wolf mask tackling him out of nowhere, and all but fixed his entire team, and destroyed the enemy with an earth-shattering punch. Her hooded figure, and straightforward manner had made it easier to trust her, and she took one look at his hitake and healed them all. Helped him bring them back home.
Now in the hospital, standing by his wife’s bed, he wished for her to help once more… Please, just… help.
He wasn’t sure why he tried to ask her, but he was at his wits end. Kakashi needed his mother, and he needed Izumi. Her hands glowed green again.
Who was she?
Where had she come from?
Questions that could be be answered later.
Why hadn’t he reported her to the Hokage yet… desperation?
To not let his boy, grow up with his mother.
Furthermore, he desperately needed her, needed her to be with him.
He still remembered when her eyes opened again. Ice blue eyes met his own dull black, and she was alive. Izumi was going to make it.
The days flew by them, and when the cloaked anbu woman wasn’t allowed to stay within the walls, Sakumo let her stay with them.
And for a while, she did.
She seemed so lost.
He would let her hold Kakashi, and she would simply, sit there, crying silently, holding his son, and rarely spoke.
And when she did…. She usually thought she was alone.
“Kakashi, I’m scared.”
-
“I want to go back home…”
He wasn’t sure why, but the woman who had fallen out of time, so in a lack of anything else to do, she simply stayed with them.
When the order to kill her came down, Sakumo refused, and informed her. Sent her running from Konaha, so she became a missing ninja.
From a place that didn’t want her, and the rumours of the lost kunoichi became well known. A woman without a home, fighting to survive, wishing herself back home, never stopping for too long, and always searching.
The lost kunoichi became known as a friendly figure, if treated nicely, she would heal and bring good fortune, but if treated poorly, she would destroy all and maim those involved.
He found her again, ten years later.
“Thank you for saving my wife. Kakashi needed his mother.”
She would simply stare at him.
“Would you like to come and meet him? He’s grown quite a lot.” She nodded and Sakumo brought her back with him.
Holding her hand in the beginning, as if he was leading a child, when she walked on her own, he let her hand go, and quickened the tempo.
She hadn’t changed.
As if she was frozen in time and stood still, she was as lost as the day he first met her.
A child crying out in fear, in a strange world where she could not find her way back home.
“Where is your home?”
She didn’t say.
But he didn’t expect her to answer anything.
Not anymore.
She just stared at him.
At Kakashi, who stared at her.
“It’s nice to have you home again.” Izumi hugged her.
“Welcome back home.” Kakashi hugged her, following his mother’s example.
Sakumo smiled, and she hugged them back, as if she was unsure if they would break if she touched them.
“You’re the woman from the photos, aren’t you?”
Her tilted head led Kakashi to find them, photos of them. Her sitting with him in her arms, sleeping on the coach together and she was always covered. From head to toe.
None of them could say what the colour of her skin was, what kind of hair she had, they barely even saw her eyes through the mask.
All they knew was she was dressed in anbu armour, had a blood red mark of anbu on her clothing, and did her best to cover everything.
Tears.
She was crying again.
“Come on! I have to show you how good I have gotten in throwing kunai!” Kakashi dragged her out to the garden, leaving to parents staring after her.
“She’s still as lost as the day we met her…” Sakumo commented, and his wife smiled, “yes, but she isn’t as lonely now.”
She was sleeping on the coach, and Kakashi joined her. Because “You have to take me with you the next time you leave, I want to see everything too!”
The hokage got a hold of her.
But she was simply given a mission.
With Sakumo and Minato.
Two quick enough to kill her if she should be dangerous to the village, and yet…. It went fine.
They came back home and the nameless kunoichi continued.
“Are you still as lost?” Sakumo wondered to himself as she moved around.
She simply looked away.
Like she usually did.
Then the night came.
Leaving a sleeping Kakashi in the middle of the night, with a kiss on the forehead and a note.
“I’ll come back to you.”
Sakumo watched her leave.
The next day he took his time, and wondered who she was, as he tried to calm a fuming and absolutely devastated Kakashi, whom she left behind.
He found her again.
Sleeping under a large cherry tree.
“The emerald witch” A nickname she had earned in Sauna after breaking through quite a few of their patterns and saving a woman’s life. A young creature that simply broke in, healed people and moved away when she was done.
He still had no idea who she was, but he knew one thing.
He knew where she belonged.
“Will you come home?” Sakumo asked, his hand outstretched, and she took it.
It was easy to come home.
Kakashi was angry with her.
He was sixteen and she had been gone for six years.
“You shouldn’t hide your face all the time! And you owe me a birthday present, I turned 16 yesterday, and you were missing!” He had never really cared, but it seemed the woman had always piqued his interest.
“What do you want Kakashi?” Sakumo was surprised that she answered at all.
She rarely spoke at all, but Kakashi was her only leeway of doing so. He was the only one who got her to speak.
But no one else… Never. Just Kakashi.
Izumi was staring at them, “I think he might have a small crush on her” she whispers to a smiling Sakumo.
“I want to see you.”
Her head tilted.
“I want to see your face, under the mask.”
She nodded, “Happy birthday, Kakashi.” She removed the mask, and Izumi, and Sakumo moved to see it too.
Her pale skin, big green eyes, the purple diamond in her forehead, and her pink eyebrows showed a rather beautiful young woman, but she looked like she’d be 18, not tipping any higher.
“Still frozen in time I see.”
She nodded.
Her tired, sad eyes were covered all too soon.
Sleeping on the coach that night, Kakashi refused her to leave without him. She’d have to escape him if she wanted to go.
Sakumo found them cuddling the next morning.
Izumi dragged her into the hokages office and demanded that she’d be allowed to come and go as she wished.
Which she got.
No one dared fight his Izumi, the woman was terrifying.
And he loved her all the more for it.
She stayed with them for a few months, and after a while, Sakumo simply stated that Kakashi could drag her into his own bed, if they were going to be cuddling all night anyway.
She hadn’t uncovered since his birthday, but that was fine. She would come out when she was ready.
Then one night she left.
An angry Kakashi ran after her the morning after.
But couldn’t find her.
Sakumo ended up talking to his son about her.
Even if he barely knew anything.
“I’ll find her again, and when I do, I’m not letting her go.” His son had stated.
Sakumo couldn’t help it, “Are you in love, Kakashi?”
The bloodred blush on his son’s cheeks and clear “YES!” said it all.
Who knew, so he guessed, he’d have to find her again sometime.
They called her Sakura, after her pink eyebrows, making a guess that her hair was most likely the same colour.
He was guessing he’d find her soon, but he didn’t…
But Izumi did.
Izumi came home one day, dragging her home with her one day, and Kakashi, at the age of 20 yelled at her, and hugged her. Calling her an asshole for always leaving him.
But she hugged him back.
And for once, the air around her didn’t smell like sadness and tears, but rather, spring.
Sakumo was sure he’d forever remember his furious son screaming at her.
“Where the hell have you been?! Why did you leave without me?!”
“I’m home.” She simply said, and just like that, all the anger burned out.
The frustration and sadness changed to happiness and a desperate need to just have her there. They still ended up cuddling in his son’s bed, he only guessed that she surrendered once more, and yet, she removed the mask and hood when Kakashi asked her to.
It was a quiet day, when Kakashi simply stated, “I love you.” And kissed her.
Her mask was in place, and yet, Sakumo could see the shock on her.
She stayed with them for months.
She rented a small apartment with Kakashi for three months, healing and fixing people up from a guest room.
No one had really seen her face except those three.
She took it off one day they came over for dinner.
Sakura still looked 18, not a single thing had changed.
But had she smiled.
And the young woman looked beautiful.
Maybe not so lost anymore…