Sins & Tragedies

He doesn't know when it started, or why he accepted it, but he does know who started this, and who is keeping it going. If he had it his way, this whole routine would fall back and fade away, never to be seen again and fully forgotten in the scheme of things. After all, she was just promoted, he just joined ANBU (for the third time), and their lives were getting farther and farther apart.

And besides, if anyone ever overheard their conversations, if what they bantered about ever got back to the Hokage, he would be executed via a well-aimed punch to his head.

But it is her who keeps this going, it is her who initiates all of this. In the back of his mind, he hears a distant voice telling him about 'duty' and 'honour' and 'good god man, stand up to her', but it's far enough back that it has no influence whenever she pulls him into a dark alley and asks him to take her home. It has no say when he nods his head as calmly as possible, and leads her home so she is "safe".

It screams "for the win" over and over when he leaves her at her doorstep and walks away, however.

---

"Kakashi, I decree that you are not permitted to have a sex life outside of your relationship with me."

He looks up at her with eyebrows raised, and then he glances over her shoulder to make certain that Naruto and Sasuke are really fighting, and not pretending to fight just so they can eavesdrop like the despicable ninjas they are. Then he looks back at her, and shrugs. "If you say so."

His gaze returns to his book, a fantastic new edition of Icha Icha that would have him absolutely entranced if she wasn't so damn close to him. He could feel the warmth of her body radiate towards him, and he scooted back a little against the tree to try to escape it without looking conspicuous.

If only he were so lucky. She took three steps forward, until she was right next to him, and pulled away his book. "You'll go blind if you read all of the time."

A loud crack stops him from replying, and he stands with a half-hearted air of apology. “I’m sorry, but it seems that Naruto has broken one of Sasuke’s ribs.”

She smiles, and shrugs her shoulders. “No you’re not.”

She speaks the truth. He wasn’t.

---

It’s another one of those conversations that had the hair of his neck standing on end, and his fingers shaking slightly from the ironclad control he likes to think that he has at all times.

She stands there, yet again in another alleyway, holding onto the front of his jacket and screaming at him.

“Why do you not respond to me? Why?”

He shakes his head, and tries to take one step back, only to find that his back is already against the wall. The glimmer of triumph in her eyes does not go unnoticed, but he chooses to not address it at the moment. “I respond Sakura, just not in the way you want.”

She slumps forward, onto his chest, and her fingers tighten their hold on his jacket. “Why then, do you not respond to me the way I want you to?”

A million reasons have been floating through his head since she started this, most among the taboo of student/teacher and some among the age-difference. Then there are the idiotic ones, the ones that mention how too alike they are and how they would probably swallow one another whole with nothing left but a merged mass of chakra and argument.

And then there is the one reason, that chirps like a bird as it flies around his mind, saying that the only reason he has not given in and gone with the flow of her advances is that he does not want to be a replacement whoever it is that needs replacing in her life, and by the way, he’s entirely too possessive don’t you know?

Instead of those millions and millions of reasons, he says simply “Because.”

Her grip relaxes a bit, and she says “I won’t break, you know,” and then she leaves him in the dark alleyway, leaning against a wall.

---

He has gone through the past few years of interaction with Sakura with the certainty that it was all her fault.

It was Rin’s fault for loving him the way she did, that she died taking a kunai for him and thinking it was this loud proclamation of love that really ended up being something for him to feel guilt over, because really, he only promised to protect her from the enemy, not from her own stupidity.

It was the Fourth’s fault for dying the way he had. If only he had let Kakashi help him with the seal. They both would have suffered by a drainage of power, and the constant maintenance would have been tiring, but he would have lived with the boy he had doomed, and he would have been around for Kakashi when no family was in sight. The guilt that edged it’s way into him from there was because of his viewpoint, and not much else. If only he had protested harder, or forced his way into the procedure.

It was Obito’s fault for helping him up, and getting crushed under a rock as the result. It wasn’t Kakashi’s fault for tripping, but it wasn’t his fault either for the death of his friend. And it wasn’t his right to refuse the gift, though he knew it would damn him more than anything had damned him before. Not even his father’s spite could top that.

He looks at Sakura’s retreating back after another successful mission where she doesn’t say a word to him, and doesn’t even look at him unless she has to, and he decides that maybe the blame lies mostly with him, and she is only guilty of starting it, and of ending it.

---

Tsunade gives just him and her a mission: Retrieve a scroll, and give it to a lord across the river, then return to the village safely. Not very high in rank, but the pay is good, because this is espionage of the highest order, in the lovely form of backstabbing an allied nation and starting a war between two countries that have no reason to fight.

Sakura asks why a war is needed, and the answer contains many phrases she does not enjoy, like “needed for cover” and “assassination of lords”.

They leave the building, and head for the village gates with all intentions of starting and ending the mission as quickly as possible. Sakura adjusts her knapsack as they pass the guards, and Kakashi tries hard not to stare at her.

“Why.. do you respond to me?”

The birds titter overhead, mocking his sudden choice in confrontational words, and he mentally kills them all with fire. Heavy bursts of fire, that would char them and burn them slowly and painfully as they twitter and die into a heap of burn.

Sakura’s pace quickens, and she does not look at him. “Because.”

He looks back at the gates, and notices that the guards are not watching them, looking down at something that is probably a board game or a deck of cards. He walks faster to catch up, and his fingers grasp the straps of her knapsack as he pulls her toward him, twisting his mask down to his neck all the while.

It isn’t a nice kiss, but one with teeth and bruises and a smattering of blood where she scratched his lower lip with one of her canines. The fresh copper tang floods both of their mouths, and by the time they pull apart they have dark red lips that slightly run off to the chin on one side.

She looks up at him warily, breathing hard and licking her lips as if they needed to be more wet. He stares down at her with both eyes, his hitai-ate knocked to the ground long ago in a thump of metal and cloth.

The birds titter again, this time at the nice show they just received, and he wonders if frying them all with lightening would be a better death for them.

And he nods his head to her, as she still stands there stock still at watching him with confusion, and he turns towards the direction of the city they need to go to for the mission. “Come on, we need to finish this thing.”

He walks down the road, and she watches him. Her breath comes back to her, and she reaches down for her pack, seeing his hitai-ate lay listlessly on the ground.

She picks it up, and runs after him.

---

She started it, and she ended it in her own special way. He started it again, but he didn’t end it, instead choosing to let it go on and on and on for as long as it could without burning out into oblivion.

He fully expects it to be a long time before that finally happens.