Chapter Text
“Please, Kakashi.”
In all the many years he has known her, Kakashi has never seen the great Sanin look so wretched. Her hair is so grimy as to appear brunette, dirt smearing her cheeks and tattered prison clothes. Her arms, as ever, are locked in chakra cuffs behind her back and she kneels on the floor in supplication, held down by chains. No doubt she’d had to trade a lot of favors among the guards to get this visit. He tries not to dwell on what those favors might have been.
They’d thought, once, that Danzo and ROOT were antiquated and barbaric. They hadn’t known just how dark a shinobi village could become until they’d been overtaken by the Bloody Mist. It had been a long-planned coup, coordinated with Danzo in secret over years. His betrayal was the only reason the Mist had managed to penetrate the barrier undetected, kill off the entire council in one fell swoop, subjugate their jonin forces and hamstring their ANBU. The traitor had lived just long enough to see the fruits of his labor come to fruition, eagerly reaching for the Hokage’s hat before the Mizukage himself cut off his head.
Life in Konoha had become hell, after that.
“You have to volunteer before they begin assignments from Mist. She’s a member of the lowest caste with ties to the last Hokage. The moment her name is brought to their attention they will try to break her, simply out of spite.”
“You can’t ask this of me,” he whispers, running a hand through his hair. “She’s—I can’t…“
“I’m begging you,” she rasps. “She trusts you. The Mist trusts you. You’re the only one they’ll let slide. She’s like a daughter to me, I can’t let them…”
Her words end in a choked noise and he can see tears falling from her eyes. It pains him to see the once great Godaime Hokage fallen so far; but he can’t abide her, can’t stomach the notion. Surely she must understand…?
“They could could pull me off the roster,” he argues. “When they review the assignments, they could put a Mist shinobi in my place. There’s no guarantee—”
“I know,” she agrees heavily. “But with so many kunoichi to train and their forces stretched so thin… chances are good they won’t look too closely. If all it gives her is a chance… that’s enough.”
“I was her sensei, once…” His voice is high-pitched and desperate, feeling the walls close in around him. “I’ve known her since before she had breasts!”
It’s not an objection, exactly. He’s smart enough to see where this conversation is going. He doesn’t have it in him to fight her, now when she’s in the position she’s in, and she knows it. It’s a last breath—a final rumination on the inevitable concession.
“I know,” she whispers after a moment of silence. “And because of that you, unlike them, will treat her with the gentleness she deserves.”
He falls to his knees in a mirror of her own pose, head hitting the bars of her cell. She doesn’t cry or sob—Tsunade is too proud for such a thing. But she weeps silently, her tears landing upon the grime-slicked stone with a quiet plip.
“Alright,” he breathes out. Defeated. Anguished. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
And thus—he seals his fate. And hers.
He goes to the mission office. Puts in the request. Is approved almost immediately, the Mist overseers guffawing and giving him knowing looks. It makes his stomach churn, makes him want to rip off the mask he’s grown used to wearing—that of the friendly, traitorous ex-Konoha ROOT ANBU—and slit their throats. But then he remembers Tsunade’s wretched face, thinks of Sakura’s bright smile, and knows he can’t afford to break under the pressure. Not when there is so much at stake.
The days until he has to face her rapidly dwindle. He knows they’re preparing her—preparing all of the young Konoha Kunoichi in the first wave of “training”, so he prepares as well. He doesn’t know what he will say when she shows up at their designated training site. She’s a member of the third and lowest caste—the conquered, the not-to-be-trusted; while he, by sheer luck, circumstance, and administrative error, is a member of the second caste—the allies, the traitors. They live in different rings of the village, hold different privileges. He won’t see her before the day arrives. There’s no way to forewarn her; no way to save her from the anxiety and fear. Or at least lessen it—he doubts there’s any way to rid her of it altogether.
He doesn’t sleep the night before. He’s prepared as much as he can—for himself, and for her; but still, his mind churns with anxious visions and imagined sobs of betrayal and heartache and rage. When the morning arrives he trudges, feet like lead weights, to the appointed “training facility”: a farmer’s cabin at the edge of the village. With such a large village to secure (to break), little thought was given to the transplantation of the Mist’s Red Scroll Kunoichi Training program. They simply took the homes of those they’d killed in the coup and re-purposed them. The Mist cared little for small details like dignity and history—it was results they were most interested in. Whatever means produced those results, however slapdash—however cruel, would do.
It is a modest single-room cottage at the edge of a bamboo grove. He can see the seals that have been carved into the outer walls as he enters, sets his pack upon a scuffed table in the corner and sits heavily in a chair before it. He leans over the wood with his head in his hands and just breathes.
He doesn’t know how he’s going to do this.
A half hour later, he can hear them coming. The sun has risen fully over the grove beyond, light shining cheerfully through cracked windows. He rises and attempts to affect a calm demeanor as the door slams open and she’s led inside gruffly by a Mist watcher.
The man gives Kakashi a knowing grin, looking Sakura up and down, leering. Despite staring down at the ground, he can see the fire and undisguised hate in Sakura’s eyes, even as her body trembles like a leaf in the wind. Kakashi gives the watcher a cheerful little salute and the man turns with a wave.
“Have fun,” he says with a rumbling laugh, shutting the door shut behind him with a snap. Kakashi feels the thrum of the seals on the house activate a few moments later. They’ll be trapped for the next two weeks.
She doesn’t lift her gaze from the floor as she growls out: “I’m not giving myself to some Kiri piece of shit. I’ll break every bone in your body if you so much as touch me.”
Kakashi’s heart aches at her words. He’s so proud of her bravery—and so devastated by what he knows would have happened were he actually a shinobi of the Bloody Mist.
“I wouldn’t advise you say something like that to an actual Mist nin.”
Her head snaps up and her jaw drops, eyes widening as she takes in the sight of him.
“K-Kakashi-sensei?! What are you doing here?”
His gaze softens, and he swallows down the lump in his throat.
“I… I couldn’t…” he clears his throat. “I couldn’t let you go through this with a Mist shinobi. I couldn’t… let them hurt you.”
She is silent, and he can see the gears turning—the emotions warring across her face: relief, confusion, calculation, anxiety. Her mouth works silently a moment before she gets words out.
“Does that mean… that—that you’re my…?”
He stares at her, his expression pained, and it’s enough to give her an answer.
“I… but… you mean something to me!” she rasps, clutching her chest. Her legs give way beneath her and tears build quickly on her lashes “I can’t… I don’t want—“
He crosses the room to kneel by her side in an instant, his own heart painfully heavy.
“I know,” he says quietly, anguished. He doesn’t want to be the one to have to perpetrate this trauma, either. There are so few people left she can trust, it kills him that he has to become associated with Kirigakure’s crimes against Konoha. “I can’t… there’s certain things I have to do, that they will expect. But I’ll do everything I can to make it… easier.”
She’s starting to hyperventilate and all he can do is kneel by her side with a hand on her back, rubbing gently and reminding her to breathe. He wishes so desperately he could do more.
They’re both entrapped. He will be expected to turn out a kunoichi capable of executing red-scroll missions and servicing the upper caste, and she will be expected to become that kunoichi. If either of them fail, it will mean beatings at best—death at worst. Two weeks is scarcely enough time, even with cooperative parties. He can only afford to give her a day to adjust, however much he wants to give her more.
So he lets her cry, lets her rage. And tomorrow… they will have no choice but to get to work.