Blood Orange

A/N : Wanted to add more to this chapter, but my muse wouldn't let me. Next chapter should explain quite a bit. Chapter after that should be a lemon, and after THAT, there's be a brief hiatus on this fic while I work on the prequel. Still can't think of any names.

Reviews are wonderful.

**********************


It wasn't the look in her eyes, her face, the way her mouth lay in a flat, undecipherable line. The way those gray eyes glazed over not from lack of recognition, but rather from a lack of desire TO recognize.

In retrospect, it shouldn't have bothered Kakashi. He'd been trained since childhood to go undetected. To be ignored. All ninja were. In fact, it was usually a GOOD thing when one wasn't noticed. But it did.

She knew it was him. For a brief moment there was a spark of something else in those eyes. Something he translated as familiarity, perhaps relief.

And yet she spared only half a second to mutter his surname in a defeated, uninterested voice.

She recognized him alright.

She just didn't give a fuck.

***************************


“About my question, Sakura” you reply, breaking the awkward silence that had settle between you three.

“Oh, um, yes” she manages at what is clearly an attempt to regain her composure. “Well, I really don't know. We don't have much information about the bodies per-say, but-”she pauses

“But we might have more information about the rinnengan.”

You realize at that point that you knew next to nothing about your eyes, the kekkei genkai you'd been invariably cursed with. You'd heard of it, yes. Pein HAD been one Jiraiya's students, at one point, and he'd (unwillingly) shared more than enough information on the bloodline limit. You could utilize all six elements of chakra, see chakra nodes (though to a lesser extent than byakugan users) and control bodies as if they were your own from a remote location, though the process of gifting said bodies with rinnengan was unknown) your knowledge ended there.

“Although . . .” Sakura starts slowly. “We might not have much have much intel on how Pein used the bodies, we do know that once the bodies were deactivated, everyone that had been killed in battle by them were resurrected..”


Wait.

No. That couldn't possibly mean. It couldn't. . .


“Couldn't what?” Sakura questions, alerting you to you having said your thoughts allowed.


“Sakura” you grab her shoulder, and as if forgetting the honorific wasn't rude enough, roughly pull her within your failing vision's line of sight. “Who came back?”


“I don't know what you mean b y that, '_____-sa-”


“Who came back after that son of a bitch killed them? “ you feel yourself trembling as your voice reaches a crescendo, dripping with desperation. “Who did Pein bring back?”


The medic nin's mouth falls open slightly, unsure of what to say. She makes a motion with her hand as if to pry yours off of her, but stops.

“I-, I don't know what to-”

“Sakura.” Kakashi interrupts her, nearing your bedside. “Enough. “


For a moment, she does nothing, only giving her former teacher the most confused look you'd ever seen, before finally shrugging you off and stepping aside, allowing Kakashi to move within your line of sight.

You inhale slightly. It really had been years since you'd seen the copy nin. Prematurely white hair had always given him a more mature look, but there were wrinkles, dark circles under his eyes, lines set in his face not by age but by stress. And that mask. Still wearing that fucking thing. He'd never taken it off once. Not even for you.

With only one eye exposed, it was more than difficult for the average person to read his expression, but with time you'd learned to interpret subtle gestures of what did show into expressions, emotions, mood, everything from that one eye.

This time, it's a wicked concoction of fear. Fear, uncertainty, and defeat.

This time, he places his hand on your shoulder. You stiffen even under the light touch. You know he feels it. You know he knows you don't care.

He lets out a sigh.


“Jiraiya-sama wasn't resurrected.”


In that instant, for the third time in your life, your world comes crashing down around you.

That sick feeling, that familiar nauseous, poisonous feeling welling up in your stomach erupts. You swallow hard at the tight ball forming in your throat, clenching your teeth, hands shaking.

Of course. How could he possibly come back? You'd been stupid. Stupid to dream, to hope.
You'd buried him. Buried those feelings. Stomped them. Crushed them into oblivion.

Because he made you promise not to cry over him


“Fuck this.” you mutter, scrambling out of bed, heading for the small window at the end of your room. Sakura reaches out, as if to stop you, but Kakashi holds her back. For whatever reason he does this, you're thankful, but fail to voice this as you pry open the pane, slide your body underneath, and escape out into a dismally overcast outdoors.

“Just leave her be. “The jounin mutters. “God knows it hurts to loose someone twice.”

**********************

You didn't know where you were.


Cold, clothed in only hospital-issued garm, and visually impaired, you're not lost in your hometown, but pretty damn close. The darkening gray sky doesn't help, but it doesn't need to. You're perched underneath the eve of a building that had managed to weather the attack. Or at least, most of it had


From five stories up from the ground, you can make out most of the village. With a sinking feeling you realize you recognize nothing. It WAS being rebuilt. By the same people that had lived there before no less. But would it be enough? You wonder, propping up your chin with your hand, gazing blankly at the rubble spread out before you. Just how much of this had you caused?

You shake your head, as if to rid yourself of the thought. No. It wasn't you. Pein had been controlling you. All of you. It wasn't you.


Then why are my fucking hands stained with blood?


There's a soft thud beside you. For a moment, you don't even bother to look, assuming part of the frail windowsill had just finally given way and fallen. But when you're greeted by an aloof “mushi mushi” you nearly loose your balance.


“I was going back to the hospital eventually, you didn't have to go looking for me.”


“Maybe you were, maybe you weren't.” The copy-nin replies daftly. “Or maybe you were planning on staying out here until you froze solid.”


You spit out of the side of your mouth. “Jumping would be easier. And less painful.”


He raises an eyebrow. “I was just kidding.”


“I wasn't.” you reply somberly. “Kakashi, what do I even have left? The village is gone, He's gone, and I'm hardly human anymore.”

“I shouldn't be alive.”

…......

“Pein killed me too.”

It's then that you clamp your mouth shut, eyes wide, and you turn to him, who is, of course, staring off into the distance.

You weren't sure why it surprised you. It wasn't like it was magic. You'd come back from the dead too.


”Zombies”

“What?”

“Y'know, Zombies.” you reply, a weak smile ebbing at the corners of your mouth. “The living dead. That's exactly what we are.” you raise a hand to your face, tracing the scars where the metallic rods had been, still deep and bruised. Shizune, Kakashi, the others, they'd come back clean, their resurrection was miracle like, while your return had been a sin against nature.


Immersed in though, you fail to notice the shuffling, and you feel a hand, however tentatively, pressed against your shoulder.


"You're not a zombie" Kakashi reassures you. “You're still human. And you've still got me.”


And yet again, you immensely regret Kakashi's almost psychic intuition.


You heart catches in your throat.


No

No

No fucking way.

It didn't matter what he meant by it, or what he didn't mean by it. This wasn't right.

This was too soon. At least that's what you brain was telling you over and over again, why your conscious was screaming bloody murder. But your body doesn't respond, not when the hand on your shoulder snakes do to your waist, not when the one-armed hug becomes a full embrace, and his chin rests lightly on the side of your neck.

It's then you feel it. The spark, that ball of yearning heat you hadn't felt in years, since ANBU days. But just as you were about to reiterate, to relax into his hold, he pulls away.

“I actually came here on orders.”


“What orders?”


“Well, you were actually in the process of being discharged before you made your little break.” he starts. “Tsunade-sama had to check on an anomaly in your body to have you cleared.”


“My whole body is an anomaly.” you reply scornfully.


He simply shrugs. “Just procedure. I'm sure she'll tell you once we get there.”


“We?” you ask, raising an eyebrow. “What if I don't come?”


He chuckles softly, though he narrows his eye. “You will.”

For the first time since your death, you feel a pang of fear. Fighting Kakashi was one thing, he'd be compelled to go easy on you in your crippled state, trying to ESCAPE from Kakashi was quite another, and something you didn't feel like attempting any time soon. Or ever.

You let out a sigh of resignation. “Since you asked so nicely. . .”