Cherry Blossoms in Fall

Title: Cherry Blossoms in Fall

Pairing(s): Sakura/Kakashi; Minor: Sakura/Sasuke, Sakura/Naruto, Sakura/Sai Eventually minor pairings: Naruto/Hinata

Rating: M (Lemons, explicit language, and violence)

Summary: Sakura was sent on a secret mission for two years not long after the Sasuke recovery team was formed. Since she’s been gone, Sasuke came back on his own and team Kakashi was reformed minus Sakura. With information saying that Sakura is KIA what will happen to team Kakashi?

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Naruto characters or any other ideas drawn from the series. Nor do I make a profit from any of the intellectual rights of the person who owns the Naruto series.

Recap: Team Kakashi heads to the Fire/Light border to retrieve Sakura’s body but instead end up fighting two Mist ANBU. Kakashi wakes up to the sight of Sakura alive and well and kisses her in his confusion.

Chapter 2: Explanations


Sakura sat up, seeing the pain in Kakashi’s single onyx eye; she helped him lay back down on his back and inspected the wound in his side. Her face was still flushed from their heated interaction but she didn’t say anything about it, sensing it was best to just not ask. Her lips tingled but she brushed it off as being a sensation caused by the rough material of his mask against her lips. “Stay still Kakashi.” She admonished and began to push her healing chakra into his side.

“How long have I been asleep…?” Kakashi enquired, hoping that changing the subject might distract his mind from the fact that Sakura’s strawberry scent had invaded his nose to the point of making his head dizzy. The mask that usually blocked the intrusive smells around him now had the scent of her clinging to it and making his blood pump.

Sakura could feel how fast Kakashi’s heart was beating and a flutter flitted through her lower belly when she realized it was her doing. She bit her bottom lip to stop the flattered smile from crossing her face. “Three days. I would have healed you completely had you woken up sooner but I didn’t want to seal up your wounds until I was sure there was no mysterious pains anywhere.”

Kakashi murmured his understanding but was surprised at how long he had been asleep, his wounds were severe though. He found it hard to breathe still even though it was obvious that Sakura had healed his punctured lung. “Nothing is hurting that shouldn’t hurt I don’t think…chest is a bit tight…”

“That’s from the lung injury, mostly healed.”

“Legs are now hurting like a bitch…”

“Understandable after having giant ice shards pierce them. I heal those next. How’s your side?” She asked nodding down to where she was healing.

“No pain now. I doubt his attack left any remnants in me it was all made of ice and all.” Kakashi mused. He could taste blood in his mouth and realized he might have had a tooth or two knocked loose by a punch at some point. Oh dear…Sakura will have to check that. Kakashi swallowed some of the blood so as to postpone that particular inspection.

Sakura quietly healed him for awhile until she noticed him observing his three unconscious or sleeping companions, he wasn’t sure which. “Sasuke and Sai haven’t woken yet. Naruto was awake for a little while yesterday got him some ramen and he cried for an hour or so. You guys thought I was dead?”

Kakashi felt the grief he felt three days ago tug in his chest, but if he were asked he’d insist it was the lung injury. “Yes a fellow from that group of chunins you saved told us you were dead. We came to get your body. He said he’d checked to see if you were dead.”

“I was dead, for a minute or two. After he’d left a demon came and possessed my body, it brought me back to life and helped me heal. Some of the villagers found me and brought me home.”

“Those Secondary abilities of yours sure are handy.” Kakashi said, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Sakura was briefly surprised that he knew she was a Secondary. “Tsunade told you then.”

“Yes. She didn’t say what you were doing out here though.”

“Training and doing some research on my clan.” Kakashi was now eyeing her clothes curiously. She wore a white haori and red hakamas, her feet were bare and he could see that beneath the white haori she just wore a fishnet shirt. Sakura followed his sight and saw that her haori was open rather provocatively so that he could see plenty of the curves of her recently grown breasts. Her blush spread down from her face to her neck and she idly pulled the neck of the haori closed. Her long pink hair fell down to almost the length it did when she was a genin but she parted her bangs differently with a slight tilt to the left side of her face and the bangs fell in voluptuous curves around her face.

“Hmmm what’s with the get up?” Kakashi asked but his tone gave the distinct impression that he wasn’t actually listening but was studying her intently.

“I’ve been working as a priestess for the Flower village. You’re all healed now.” Sakura murmured. Kakashi sat up and stretched a bit feeling the usual tightness that was present right after a healing.

Now that he was sitting up next to her he could see that one thing certainly did not change, Sakura was still a petit little thing when compared to him. Sitting up he could tell he had a head over her still. He could smell her natural strawberry scent but it had hints of her arousal, she was looking over at Sasuke and Naruto but she obviously still had her attention on him. He could see her eyes dart to the corners to peak at him and look back. So cute… Kakashi’s eye creased happily and he reached out to ruffle her hair much to Sakura’s annoyance.

Sakura scowled at him but her head snapped back around immediately when there was stirring from the prone forms. Sasuke made a grunting sound and his eyes slowly opened. Sakura shuffled over to him and Kakashi watched but his nose was picking up that the aroused vanilla smell she had given off along with the strawberry smell was dissipating. Hmmm So I can cause such a reaction but not Sasuke? Interesting.

Sasuke’s eyes widened at the sight of Sakura bent over him. “How are you feeling Sasuke? Where does it hurt?” Sakura asked immediately she could tell he was in pain.

Sasuke’s mouth opened and closed for a minute as he tried to come up with a proper response after seeing his pink haired teammate again. “My…leg.” Sakura moved down to his leg and ripped off some of the material of his pants to get a look at the leg he had shifted. Sakura got to work healing while the two stoic men watched her.

Kakashi watched as Sasuke stared at Sakura with a certain intensity that had his possessive instincts riled. Kakashi decided to spare Sakura the trouble of explaining things again for Sasuke and began to rattle off all that Sakura had told him. Sasuke continued to stare at Sakura but he’d occasionally give a soft “Hn.” Indicating he was listening.

Luckily Naruto and Sai woke up half way through the explanation so there was little to explain to them. Sakura got to work healing Sai and Kakashi was beginning to wonder where she was getting all the chakra she was using.

“Aren’t you getting tired Sakura?”

Sakura smiled and closed up a wound on Sai. “I can draw the chakra from the environment. Like this candle…” Sakura reached across Sai and pointed at the flame with a slender finger. The tip of her finger glowed a warm orange that matched the flame’s color; a smoky aura became visible around the flame and was drawn into her finger. The other shinobi could sense her chakra flaring and growing a little larger.

“You effectively have an infinite supply of chakra.” Sai said in amazement.

Sakura grinned sheepishly. “It takes loads of concentration to do that level of chakra control, and it takes time. Not very useful for battle purposes unless I get really good at it, and if I’m ever fighting somewhere where there are very few life forms to take chakra from it won’t work out so well.”

“Hn…”

“Can you take the chakra from an enemy?” asked Kakashi.

“If I’m in close proximity like while using taijutsu.” Sakura said suddenly becoming a little wary of revealing too much. But these guys were the closest thing she had to family now. Sakura finished up on Sai and looked around to the rest. “Would you guys like to soak in the hot spring? It will be good for healing and we can catch up!” She was the picture of excitement but Kakashi wasn’t sure he could survive seeing Sakura in just a towel, blood loss could be fatal even through the nose.

“YEAH!” Naruto pumped his fist in the air, jumping up and down as if he hadn’t had a hole through the gut three days ago.

“Have you recently had a sex change?” Sai enquired to Sakura who glared in response.

“Noooo…” She replied hesitantly, Sai is such an oddball.

“Then how do you plan on joining us? Won’t the innkeeper be bothered?” Sai asked innocently.

Sakura scoffed. “We aren’t at an inn. This is the Tsukino castle. My birth parents were part of the Tsukino clan so they used to live here.” The Tsukino’s were also one of the leading clans of the Secondary’s so they had a vast library of their writings so it was helpful for Sakura’s research.

Sasuke looked about the small shoji paneled room incredulously. His eyes fell on the few candles that were lighting the room. “Could they not afford electricity?”

Kakashi smirked when Sakura turned her death glare onto Sasuke who seemed to be unused to receiving it because he blinked in surprise then glared right back fiercely. “They didn’t install electricity in this room because they paneled the walls with this special chakra so that it encourages healing and keeps out infectious bacteria that might get into the wounded’s injuries.” Sakura explained. She stood up and gave the two palest members of the group a sharp glare. “And since it seems Kakashi and Naruto are the only polite guests around here I’ll escort them to the springs.”

Sakura walked over to help Kakashi up and he gave her a happy eye crease. Sometimes it paid off to not speak one’s sarcastic mind and he definitely got a nice eyeful of what was down Sakura’s haori when she bent to give him a hand up. Verrrry nice.

Sakura glared at the perverted copy nin but what stopped her from punching his lights out like she would Naruto was how her heart jumped clear into her throat and decided to pump a mile a minute. She blushed fiercely and allowed the great copy nin to lean against her side. Naruto ran ahead excitedly to the shoji door and slid it open already running down the wrong hallway despite Sakura’s shouts to wait.

Kakashi lazily peaked over his shoulder at the stoic pale faces. He gave them a lazy victorious smirk as he wound an arm around Sakura’s thin waist. They might not be able to see his smirk because of the mask but they obviously sensed his meaning because they both stiffened and glared. He brought his other hand up to give a backwards wave.

Sakura led Kakashi and Naruto down what had to be five different outdoor hallways, the Tsukino castle was a large Japanese styled estate with shoji doors and wooden hallways that lined the outdoors around the numbers rooms. Sakura took them from a smaller building that was connected to the much larger main house. Kakashi observed the large stone walls that surrounded the estate.

It was dark outside, not long after sundown from what Kakashi deduced but he could still make out the out of place sight ahead of them. “The cherry blossom trees…” Kakashi murmured curiously. Naruto stopped and squinted at the trees seen ahead of them.

Sakura smiled fondly. “They bloom here most of the year because of the special ancient chakra in the walls around the castle; it insulates this place from most of the harsher elements.”

They walked towards the trees to the end of the hallway that went down to wooden stares to the ground. They walked along the grass, Kakashi momentarily concerned for Sakura’s bare feet but he could see that she had full confidence in where they were going. They didn’t have to walk far before they came upon a large hot spring with cherry blossom trees surrounding it. Sakura pulled some towels out of a cabinet that was built into one of the larger trees. She handed them the towels and murmured something about going to help “the brats.”

Naruto jumped in once he was stripped bare, forgoing the towel since it looked like the water was abdomen deep anyway. He sighed contently as he relaxed against the smooth rock side. Kakashi stripped and saw that Sakura had given him a small rag for his face and he slid into the water feeling the tight achiness from his wounds melt away.

Sakura soon returned with Sasuke and Sai who were staring at each other from either side of Sakura. Sasuke glaring slightly and Sai looking impassive, they each had an arm around Sakura only somewhat leaning on her like Kakashi had done. Kakashi smiled in amusement when they both turned the smallest of glares towards him. Naruto completely oblivious.

Sakura gave them towels and then padded back to the main house saying she was going to grab her swimsuit.

Sasuke and Sai slid into the water and each mail moved to three of the farthest corners the hot spring allowed and exchanged subtle looks to each other. Naruto took a random spot next to Sasuke unaware of the tension. He grinned a goofy grin across the spring to Sai.

“Sakura’s hot ain’t she??” Naruto said excitedly. Naruto made vague gestures with his hands indicating her breasts were bigger. Training with the ero-sennin had some obvious effects on the boy’s behavior. Ironically even though of the three younger boys he was the least pretty or handsome of them, though that’s not to say he wasn’t handsome in his own way, he was the one of the three with the most experience with women. Sasuke couldn’t be bothered and Sai didn’t know where to begin even having a normal conversation with a female. Naruto had visited his fair share of red light districts with Jiraiya.

“Shut up dobe.” Sasuke said flatly. Sasuke suddenly found himself in a very bad position. He knew when it came to experience he couldn’t compare to Naruto or Kakashi. He had always expected Sakura to forever fall over at his feet in adoration and now that she seemed to not be interested in him and was getting eyed by the perverted copy nin he was a bit worried. Not to mention she was quite the hot commodity, she’s gotten a nice body since his defection and apparently was the last blood descendent of a legendary race.

If she wasn’t claimed by some man already it would happen very soon, perhaps the moment she stepped back into Konoha. He wouldn’t put it past the Hokage to try to set her up with the young Kazekage as a political marriage. Suddenly Sasuke didn’t feel so much out of her league; she was now a more than worthy opponent and perhaps too good for him. But that wouldn’t stop him. He was a Uchiha after all, soon to be the last one. He would win back her affection…even if he had to be…NICE.

Sai glanced at Sasuke and could feel the rivalry flaring around him while he glared at Kakashi. Kakashi returned it with a happy eye crease that had the Uchiha fuming inside.

“You shut up teme!” Naruto growled unaware no one was paying attention anyway.

Lilting feminine laughter had the four men turning to see Sakura padding over in a pink bathing suit that matched the pink locks she had rolled up into a bun at the top of her head. A few stray strands grazed the gentle slope of her neck and her bangs still bounced freely as she jogged over to them. “You two are still the same!” Sakura laughed, grinning nostalgically down at the now red faced Uchiha and the kyuubi container who was grinning like a pervert as he eyed Sakura.

Kakashi’s eye was drawn down to her navel momentarily. “Is that a piercing Sakura?” asked Kakashi.

Sakura flushed and subconsciously reached down to run a slender finger against the cool ball of the belly button piercing. “It’s part of my research.” She insisted truthfully though she didn’t look very convincing with how embarrassed she was acting. “Storing chakra in piercings like with the ANBU tattoos, this way perhaps there could be a way to remove the piercing so an enemy might not realize they are ANBU. Its technology I learned from studying the walls here.” Sakura explained as she slipped her long slim legs into the water and sat on the edge instead of sliding in.

“What happened to the Mist ANBU?” Sai cut in curiously.

Naruto shrugged. “I don’t know I was taken out not long after Kakashi…”

“You were taken out but when I showed up moments later the guy you were fighting gave up and left taking his buddy with him.” Sakura revealed. “Some villagers helped me bring you guys back here to heal you. Then I went back to dispose of the bodies.”

“Did those Mist nin take all the secrets from them?” asked Kakashi somewhat alarmed that they might have failed this mission.

“No after I was saved by the demon I went back and grabbed the information from the rogue nin and the leaf nin. I’ve already sent it back to Konoha but it looks like there’s going to be trouble. I’ve requested that you guys could stay here for a little bit while I rap up my research. I’m worried those Mist nin will bring reinforcements to investigate why I am here.” Sakura said.

“Why would they care that you are here?” asked Sai.

“Because the Flower village has sort of been named an unofficial no trespassing land because of the Secondary massacre. The other villages try not to send any ninjas here as a general rule.” Sakura explained. “Besides they might have intelligence already that there might be a Secondary alive. If any of the villages has knowledge of that it’s Mist they were running the massacre after all.”

“What would happen if they knew you were a Secondary?” asked Sasuke.

“Well first they’d try to win me over to join their village, when that fails they’ll try to kill me as quietly as possible. Then if they fail at that they will probably leak out my identity.”

“Why would they do that?” asked Naruto.

“So that I’ll get a special bingo book dedicated to all about me and then every ninja and his grandmother will be out to either recruit me or kill me.” Sakura growled in annoyance, not with Naruto but with the idea of that happening. “Also…” she hesitated briefly wondering if she was about to say too much. “I found information on those rogue nins. It looks like there is a group of rogue nins teaming up with some of the surviving Sound nins to attack Konoha. It wasn’t clear how they were going to do that but it said sometime in January. It might be better for you guys to not be there because they might be looking to kill Sasuke and Naruto specifically. But I left that for Tsunade to decide in the message I sent her.”

“What are we going to do for two months?” asked Sasuke in distaste.

“We’ll figure that out once we find out what the Hokage thinks.” Kakashi cut in authoritatively.

“So how is Konoha?” asked Sakura eagerly.

Naruto went into an excited story about how Ino and Shikamaru were engaged. Sasuke and Sai had the faintest of smiles as the companionable atmosphere warmed the area. Kakashi idly observed Sakura who was smiling down at Naruto from where she sat. She was proving to be very distracting, she broke out laughing hysterically when Naruto told her about how Ino’s first date with Shikamaru was interrupted by the vast majority of the Rookie Nine butting in and hijacking their meal. Kiba apparently let Akamaru lick all over a livid Ino’s face.

“hahaha poor Ino-pig.” Sakura said with a touch of fondness.

Their warm reunion was interrupted by a young man around the boys age running up waving a scroll. “Sakura hime! This scroll just came in from Konoha!” he shouted earnestly. He ran up and gave it to Sakura, he nervously eyed the four handsome males in the hot spring who were burning holes into him with their glares. The boy blushed when Sakura thanked him politely and he rushed off.

“Sakura hime?” Kakashi murmured curiously. Sakura flushed but didn’t comment and opened the scroll.

“Well…get comfy boys you’re hangin’ with me for two months.” Sakura said with a grin.

Hmmm this seems promising… Kakashi thought as he watched Sakura walk back towards the castle, his eyes following her pert heart shaped behind. He only vaguely heard her shout about setting up bedrooms for them, his onyx eye traveled to the other males to see them watching her departure as well. Let the games begin… Kakashi smiled his happy eye crease of a smile.

Chapter 3 preview: Sakura puts the boys to work and they learn more about the Flower village but how is Sakura to deal with strange Sai flirtations, Naruto’s mischievous gropes, Sasuke’s compliments, and Kakashi’s husky teases? Poor Sakura…(pffft who am I kidding I’m so jealous…)

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