Part 5 - End

After that, their lives devolved into the ritual they'd shared not long before, of long lunches and trivial conversations. That was safe, known ground, and they'd stay there while they regained their balance.

Only two days passed, though, before something else arrived to shatter the tentative peace.

Yamato knocked on Kakashi's door in the middle of the night and let himself in, earning an irritated look from the silver-haired man. "What could you possibly want right now that couldn't wait until morning?" he snapped, stifling a yawn.

"A man came to the village gate seeking asylum and asking for the hokage himself."

Kakashi shrugged. While unusual that hardly warranted getting him up in the middle of the night. "And?"

"It's Kabuto."

That jerked him fully alert. He hadn't been seen since the war between Sound and Konoha. While that alone was enough to warrant putting him in the underground, high-security cell Yamato had locked him into, he'd worked with Orochimaru. He might've had a hand in Sakura's death. For that alone Kakashi wanted to tear the man limb from limb.

He took some deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. He was the hokage, he couldn't afford to get carried away by emotion. He had to find out what the bastard was doing here, then he could rip him apart.

"Why does he seek asylum?" he asked, hurriedly getting ready.

Yamato shook his head. "Wouldn't say. As I mentioned, he only wants to speak to you. Apparently he hopes he has some kind of bargaining power."

Kakashi scoffed derisively. "Let him think that."

He didn't bother with the door but jumped out the window, setting a break-neck pace to the cell Yamato indicated. There was an entire team of ANBU stationed outside the door and another at the entrance to the underground site, a precaution Kakashi approved of.

At the door to the cell Yamato pulled Kakashi back and knocked once, prompting Ibiki to slip out. "Anything?" he asked the interrogation specialist.

"Nothing," he replied, shaking his head. "Then again, I couldn't do anything more than ask questions until the hokage decides his status."

Kakashi nodded in recognition. "I'll just go figure that out then," he said, barely keeping the relish out of his voice. When the others tried to follow him in he held out a hand. "He asked for the hokage so I'll try speaking to him alone first." He wouldn't let them know he wanted a private session with the man for other reasons. "I'll knock or send word if I need anything."

Yamato was slightly hesitant but Ibiki conceded right away, and Kakashi wondered if the man could sense the anger boiling up inside of him. Going inside he latched the door securely behind him before turning to the boy genius who had once been Orochimaru's right hand man and might have been up until the sannin's death.

He stared at Kabuto, who actually looked amused by the whole situation. "You know you risk your life by coming here."

"Actually I hope I might be saving it."

Kakashi wasn't going to bandy words with him, wasn't going to fish around for what the other man wanted to say, so he just leveled a hard look at him to let him know he wouldn't be playing. "Meaning?"

"Sasuke." The room went cold. "After he killed Orochimaru I thought he might come after me, and who better to protect me from him than his old village?"

Yup, definitely amused.

"And why would Sasuke be after you?"

Kabuto threw his arms wide, a smirk on his lips, then shrugged. "In the end I think he did fear Orochimaru just a bit. Well, not him exactly, but the threat of having his body overtaken. Since I'm the only other one who knows that jutsu in its entirety he'd likely feel more secure in having that knowledge wiped out completely, despite the fact that I have absolutely no interest in transferring myself to another body."

"So you're saying you don't have any interest in Sasuke?" Kakashi asked, clearly skeptical, ready to throw Kabuto out in the face of his lies if he denied it.

"I can't say I have no interest, but not in the arena he seems concerned with. I don't seek immortality, just to understand the fullest depths of ninjutsu, for which a sharingan would be a most valuable asset, but not if I am dead. While I have no problem dying for the sake of my research I'd prefer to complete more of it before then. Besides, there are always plenty of other research subjects lying around."

"Research subject – you mean people. You expect me to shelter someone who experiments on humans?"

Kabuto calmed eerily. "Your medics conduct research on humans, do they not?"

Kakashi stiffened. "Orochimaru was an anomaly, not the norm."

Kabuto tsked. "I don't refer to him. I mean your research staff here at your village hospital. They conduct experiments, try new procedures on patients, and do many things that are not the proscribed procedure in the medical world."

"And? They do these things to help people, not to harm them for their own sick amusement or twisted sense of curiosity. That has nothing to do with you."

"Quite the contrary, actually. I will admit that, yes, I learned many things – helpful things – during my time with Orochimaru, but such extremes are not my preferred method of doing things. The things I learned by his side will one day benefit the medical world at large, but I do not expect you to see that yet. I also saw that his method is far from ideal, as once a subject is incapable of using a certain function or dies we are unable to gauge the extent of what they are truly capable of. It is much more sensible to keep them alive and living under their normal conditions, simply tweaking things here and there, much as your medics do.

"I do not expect you to let me have full reign under your guard, but I do have one technique that I think you'd not want to bar me from using."

"You're going on the assumption that I'm going to allow you to stay in my village, bring danger to it, and waste manpower with shinobi set to guard you. You have given me no real reason to think that I should take this risk."

"You mean aside from the fact that it's your rogue nin that's likely after me?" Kabuto chuckled. "Well that particular technique I mentioned is what I also plan to bargain with. Care to know what it is?"

"I'm sure it's nothing good if you're the one offering it."

Kabuto hummed. "I'm not so sure. Maybe we should ask your friend."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "What friend?" he asked coldly, and any sane man would've sensed the danger, the steel beneath. Kabuto just kept on.

"The pink haired girl behind you. What was her name? Ah yes, Sakura."

Kakashi froze, immobilized.

"Oh, she doesn't seem too happy with me now that she realizes I can see her." He was now speaking over Kakashi's shoulder and the skin on his neck prickled. "Perhaps I was a bit cold in ignoring you before but I didn't want my own personal poltergeist to bother me every minute of the day about how to fix you. Besides, seems like you found another friend to spend time with, ne?"

He chuckled. "Although I guess 'poltergeist' doesn't quite sum it up."

Kakashi cut him off, confused, enraged, horrified, and dreadfully hopeful all at the same time. "Explain. Now."

Kabuto turned back to him. "Orochimaru was obsessed with immortality, with his soul continuing on indefinitely, as I'm sure you're well aware. Eventually he became concerned about everything that could go wrong during a body transfer, about how his soul might become stuck between bodies. Then he went so far as to wonder if his soul could be autonomous outside of his body so that if he died unexpectedly without a substitute body nearby he'd still be able to go find one."

"You're being awfully free with this information," Kakashi said leadingly.

"Why shouldn't I be?" he asked, shrugging again. "With Orochimaru dead I owe him no more loyalty and I myself have no interest in any of these transference techniques beyond what services I may be able to offer you today. I am interested in the body's capabilities, not the soul's, so I have no reason to be secretive about it. Besides, I have a feeling this is what's about to buy me my ticket to your protection."

"What makes you say that?"

"The way you reacted when I said Sakura's not dead."

Kakashi stiffened even further, taking a full minute to respond. "She's not?"

"Not at all. You see, Orochimaru succeeded with her; her soul is separated from her body, autonomous."

"But her body was completely lifeless when we found it."

"Of course it was. A body is nothing but a housing for a soul, an empty shell without one."

Kakashi had a moment to wonder horribly if their discovery of and subsequent raid on Orochimaru's lab had halted the process, had damned Sakura to this existence. What if they'd intended to return her to her body in order to seek further answers, to prove the two could become one again…to experiment on her further? Perhaps that wouldn't have been so wonderful an alternative after all.

"And you're saying Sakura's soul is here, intact, and you can reattach it to a body?"

Kabuto smiled. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"How do I know it's really Sakura and not just some ruse you're pulling?"

Sighing as if put upon, he responded, "Fine, I'll act translator for a little while. Is there anything you want to say to the hokage to convince him of who you are?"

They waited in terse silence a few moments before Kakashi finally spoke. "Well?"

"She seems to be so irritated with me she's refusing to talk. I don't think she understands," his voice rose as he spoke directly to her now, "that it's not just my safety we're talking about here. This is your one and only chance to get a body back, I hope you know. I'm the only one who knows this jutsu and if I go the secret goes with me. Then you can just remain alone there forever." After a moment he laughed.

"What?" Kakashi asked.

"Oh, she said that she'll just hound me until I die, but I don't think she realizes how small a threat that is to me. I'm half-crazed already, between being obsessed with my work and living with Orochimaru for more than a decade, and having an ethereal companion actually sounds somewhat entertaining."

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose. That sounded just like Sakura to get so caught up in being stubborn and angry she didn't realize the moment she'd been waiting for was right on top of her. "Can she hear me?"

"Yes."

"Fine. You tell me what 'she' says. Was that you talking with me during lunch yesterday?"

Kabuto's gaze turned sharply interested. "You can talk to her? And only sometimes? How is this possible?"

"No business of yours, and no, you're never going to find out. Now tell me what she said."

He sighed but did his duty duly. "She said 'Of course, you big, stubborn moron'." Kakashi bristled and Kabuto put up his hands defensively. "Hey, her words, not mine."

"All right, I get it." Kakashi inhaled deeply. "Then what did we talk about during that lunch?"

Kabuto quirked an eyebrow. "You want a whole recounting? She says that might take a while."

"The high points will suffice," he replied dryly.

Kabuto fell silent, leaning forward slightly and cocking his head in what Kakashi assumed was Sakura's direction. After a moment he opened his mouth, as if to respond, but shut it again with a small shake of his head, a bemused smile on his lips. Finally, after a few more minutes, he spoke.

"She says there are some things she can't speak of in mixed company," he indicated himself, "but that yesterday was mostly a talk of ordinary things. She mentioned that Naruto had pulled a prank on his old academy teacher…what was his name?" He snapped his fingers and nodded. "Ah yes, thanks, Iruka, for the man's birthday. You spoke of how this was a good sign. Naruto is ill I take it?"

Kakashi didn't confirm or deny, just continued to stare at him, and Kabuto got the message and continued. "All right, all right, sorry I asked. Sakura spoke of how she wanted to be out in the sun, to be under it and have it seep into her skin even if she couldn't feel it."

They'd had a small argument about that one. Sakura had tried to convince him to summon her once he was in a small secluded clearing somewhere so she could see somewhere besides his office but he'd deemed it was too risky. There were almost always some guards tailing him and he didn't want anyone to catch sight of her. When she'd suggested he cover her in a genjutsu, since she couldn't rely on her own chakra precision to perform a henge, he knew how desperately she must truly crave the outdoors. However he'd pointed out how antsy genjutsu tended to make ANBU, especially when it was covering the hokage, and she'd relented, if somewhat sullenly.

"Aside from that she says it was mostly business trivialities, how this client is too demanding and that one too stingy, but things she can't discuss in specifics given the current circumstances."

Thinking rapidly, Kakashi nodded. "And the day before?"

After Kabuto had related the gist of their conversations for the last week Kakashi was convinced. Elated and horrified, but convinced. He had one last question before finalizing things though. "I thought you said Orochimaru succeeded with her. If that's the case then why is she not able to inhabit other objects?" he asked, thinking of her attempts with Kankurou's puppets. "Didn't you say he wanted to be able to possess someone else if he were to die suddenly?"

Kabuto mused on that a moment. "Could be many things. For one, the human soul is a living thing so it would have trouble melding with something not alive, so an object would hold the least success. I don't know that she'd have any more success with a body, but it's hard to say as so this is the first successful splitting I know of. As far as we've gotten in our research, though, some type of outside catalyst is needed to bind the two back together. Chakra and other elements naturally do it at birth but since chakra cannot be split it goes with the soul, leaving no ties left with the body. There may have been another way to do it, but since this is where this ends we'll never know."

He nodded brusquely, then walked to the door of the cell. As he rapped on the door a guard popped his head in. "Go get Shizune," he ordered the man. "While you're at it, get Tsunade as well. Have them meet me here as soon as they're able."

That done, he shut the door behind him and turned back to Kabuto. "What will you need?"

"Does this mean you're accepting my offer?"

Trading Sakura's life for the presence of a semi-psychotic war criminal? Kakashi didn't even hesitate. "Yes, but under certain conditions of course. First you have to prove you can follow through."

"Brilliant. In that case all I'll need is a clean, quiet working environment and a body. It's too bad she's been dead so long. The soul always cleaves best to its original host, as the body seems to somehow have a memory, but after almost two years her body is far too decomposed to be of any use, and that being if you didn't cremate her. You'll just have to find me another and we can hope for the best and try as many times as it takes."

"There's a better chance of success with the original body?" Kakashi asked slowly.

"Much better. With a new body, even if the possession does take, we hadn't gotten it figured out to the point where the soul and body would bond fully and properly. There would always be the chance that a serious non-fatal injury or even just shock could sever the connection."

"If that happened would she be dead or would her soul just wander again?"

"Hard to say for certain. With the original body the bond could be made secure again so her death would be a true death, but with another body it could go either way, depending on how far the original technique impacted her soul. Then again, there's the chance that if the bond goes badly on the first body we try it with we run the same risks, so I suggest you find the best body you're able to." Kabuto spoke as if the outcome didn't really bother him either way, and while Kakashi knew the other man didn't care about Sakura as anything other than a means to an end, it enraged him. He had to force himself to think calmly about all the possible options they had.

"What condition does the body have to be in?"

"Aside from having all its essential parts?" he shrugged.

"If it's in…pieces…could you put it back together or does that present a problem?"

Kabuto's eyebrows scrunched as he thought. "Obviously a complete specimen would be preferable and the less side problems I have to deal with the better. Why do you ask?"

Kakashi ignored his question. "What about chemicals in the body, or if it's been dried out and there's no blood left? Can you compensate for those issues?"

"I suppose I could, given the time and that the damage isn't too significant, but again it wouldn't be-"

"We have Sakura's body in a stasis jutsu."

Kabuto was stunned into silence. "Well why didn't you say so in the first place?! That'll make things so much simpler. Except why would she be in pieces or…" He didn't have to finish; he was a medic and he could put the puzzle together. "You've used her body for teaching, have you?"

Nodding crisply once, Kakashi confirmed it. "Tsunade had said she thought it's what Sakura would've wanted."

Kabuto's head cocked again. "I'm not sure what she would've said before but she's certainly happy with that outcome now. How extensive is the damage?"

"Very."

"Well, I guess we'll just see when we get there. So," he rubbed his hands together in anticipation, "when do we get started?"

There was a knock at the door and the guard he'd spoken with stuck his head in, signaling that everything was set before going back to his post. Kakashi gestured Kabuto in front of him. "Right now."

Kabuto had firmly refused to allow Kakashi to view the procedure on grounds that he didn't want the sharingan to copy the technique. He might have taken issue with that if he hadn't trusted the abilities of Tsunade and Shizune so much, but as it was he didn't see a problem. Even though his borrowed eye could copy a jutsu it couldn't necessarily decipher what was happening in the meantime him – that was where their medical expertise came in. They would know what he was doing each step and where it would lead, so they were much better choices to watch over the man as he attempted to revive their Sakura and make sure he didn't try anything underhanded.

Besides, Kakashi wasn't sure he could stand the waiting, or hearing the crunch as they popped Sakura's ribs back into place and repaired her sternum, or watch as they managed to clear her veins so they could reintroduce blood back into her system. No, he was much better in his office, pretending to do work that he couldn't focus on at all.

He couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. It had really been Sakura the whole time! He'd treated her like a fake, which was understandable, but then he'd decided to really screw things up. The more time he'd spent with her the more he'd started to treat her as a different person, not someone who'd been his subordinate for as long as he'd known her.

He'd actually been flirting with her, which was messed up enough considering he'd thought her a dummy, an imposter, something wholly unsubstantial, but now to find out it really was her? He was a sick, sick man and Sakura would be perfectly justified in marching up to him as soon as she was able and punching him straight through his office wall. She'd probably been disgusted by him but felt she had to keep up the act lest he figure she wasn't worth keeping around and decided to dispel that jutsu for good. Well, or at least follow through on that threat.

Oh, this was just a fucking mess.

Especially because he'd already found out he was good and truly caught when he'd tried to cut ties to their relationship. He knew it would take her time to forgive him, if for nothing else than just making her wait for so long and toying with her fate so viciously, but she would eventually. She held grudges and could outstubborn the best of them, but she had a deviously soft heart underneath all that brashness, otherwise she'd never have survived being friends with both Naruto and Sai.

So treacherously he hoped that eventually he'd be forgiven enough that she'd be comfortable with the occasional lunch, reforming and building on the more professional friendship they'd had before her, well not death, but separation of sorts all the same.

First things first though, he had to figure out how they were going to reintroduce her to Konoha. He rifled through his cabinets, shuffling aside stacks of paper that were in the way, until he finally came across her death certificate. Of course, normally such items weren't kept in the hokage's personal office, but he'd had his reasons for holding onto this one – among a select few others – and no one had had either the reason or the courage to question his doing so.

It happened on occasion that a nin was reported dead in the field but was discovered later, so luckily they had a way of dealing with incorrect death certificates, and those papers were normally kept there, so he didn't have to go looking far. Clearing a spot on his desk for both papers, making sure to mark the places where the witnesses would have to sign and affirm that the certificate was void, he began pacing as he thought over the many other matters.

Her apartment had been rented to someone else, all her things either sold or donated, and all her friends…well they'd start with Naruto first. Frankly, if they just convinced him the rest of the village would know in no time at all, so it all came down to what Sakura wanted to do.

If the procedure worked. If it was actually her that woke up in that body.

Despite his earlier assurances that it truly was her spirit Kabuto had been talking to, there was nothing to guarantee that Kabuto couldn't pull some kind of switch in the midst of a painstakingly complicated and time-consuming ritual. Shizune, and Tsunade especially, would be able to spot most anything out of the ordinary, but in a technique based on the out of the ordinary, they'd still have to determine her identity after everything was complete.

Still he couldn't wait.

Looking down he saw his hands were shaking slightly and quickly busied them with organizing more of his paperwork and pulling a few more files that Sakura might need in order to go about repossessing some of the things she might want to claim from her old life. He'd never looked into whether she'd had savings stashed anywhere, and if so what had been done with them, so it would be good to be prepared for as much as they could.

He glanced nervously at the clock. Barely a half-hour had gone by since he'd left the autopsy room with the four of them inside and he knew he had a much longer wait.

Now he just needed to figure out something to do before he went crazy.

Sakura watched anxiously as Kabuto, with occasional assistance from Shizune or her old shishou, worked continuously over her body. It was a very odd sensation to be outside of herself, looking down at what was supposed to be her.

She'd only had the courage to come look at her body once before, when she'd given up on anyone in Konoha being able to hear her and had come to accept she might in fact truly be dead and stuck. Oddly, part of her had been detached and clinical about the whole thing, but mostly it had disturbed her more than she liked to admit to see herself so pulled apart. Her chest was splayed open, cut from neck to abdomen, and most of the tissue had been severed in order to more clearly see the heart. A couple of her organs had been removed completely and were in separate dishes, dissected so as to show new medics what they were made of. One of her thighs had also been cut open, almost in cross-section, in order to show skin, fat, and muscle.

And that had been early on. Now there was plenty more that had happened to her body and she was amazed that the three of them thought there was any hope of piecing it all back together.

They spent hours just on repairing and patching what they could before closing her up. Finally, Kabuto looked up at her and spoke, prompting Shizune and Tsunade to stare into space in approximately the same direction. "The trickiest part here is your heart. They'd cut in to show one of the ventricles so I had to patch it. Of course none of these repairs, to the heart or any of the muscles or anything else, can begin in earnest until there's bloodflow, the blood won't pump without a heart, and a heart can't beat without life. So we'll have to put you in now and then begin rapid-fire healing on the most important spots before moving on. You'll want to continue getting healing the next month at least, in addition to doing near-constant work on your heart yourself, but I think all of this should hold. I'm going to start the bonding now but you need to be warned that you'll be in a considerable amount of pain when you wake up."

Looking down at her body dubiously Sakura didn't doubt it. Still, she was a shinobi, anything but a coward, and desperate to be alive again. Besides, after over a year of no sensation she thought that any feeling, even pain, didn't sound so bad.

She'd spoken too soon. As soon as she opened her eyes, inside her own body again, her first thoughts weren't of victory or the future, but of fire and stabbing and oh-please-make-it-stop. A scream ripped from her throat, tearing at her disused vocal chords, but she couldn't stop. After so much sense deprivation everything was heightened to an extreme degree and she couldn't think of anything beyond the pain. Tsunade had to summon her own chakra in order to hold her down she began to writhe so viciously, she threatened to undo so much of the hard work they'd put into rebuilding her.

Kabuto didn't blink, just kept his hands pressed firmly against her chest, pumping chakra into her heart at a furious rate, but when she bucked up and pulled the sutures on the stitches across her abdomen, causing some bleeding, he'd had enough. "One of you, immobilize her," he commanded, not able to open his eyes or say anything else as he ground his teeth together, all his focus and energy going to repair her heart before she bled out internally through it.

Tsunade's hands were still full so Shizune did a quick semi-stasis jutsu on Sakura that would put her into a barely conscious state, then added a paralysis technique when she was still thrashing about some even in that condition. Then noticing the blood dripping, and grateful that at least the veins and arterial pathways were working properly, she hooked up more blood.

After a while the tremors finally subsided and Kabuto slid off her as well, moving his hands to the long cut across her abdomen that had been bleeding, focusing on trying to make the skin and muscles underneath repair themselves.

"Will she make it through?" Tsunade asked gruffly, her hands already sliding from Sakura's arms to her ribs in order to begin repair there.

"Looks like it. The bond itself was successful, which was the trickiest part, and now that her heart is fixed to the extent that it's not going to burst any second, she should be able to heal. She won't be training any time soon, but she'll just have to live with that."

Tsunade chuckled. "You hear that Shizune? She'll just have to live with that."

Shizune smiled, her chakra flowing into Sakura's pancreas. "That sounds perfect to me."

After seeing Kabuto secured back in his cell, both Shizune and Tsunade escorted Sakura out of the autopsy room. They'd asked if she wanted sleep, food, to find Naruto, or any other number of assorted things, but Sakura had been clear: she wanted to see Kakashi.

She leaned heavily on both of them as they made their way up the stairs, her legs unused to walking. Luckily her muscles hadn't truly atrophied, considering she hadn't been alive for the rest of her body to suck the nutrients from her limbs, but they were still stiff, ripped, cut, and out of use. It would be a while before she was back in even civilian shape, but she didn't care. At the moment she wanted to run to the top of the hokage monument and sing and dance, shouting her presence to the world, but that would have to wait. For now she had an appointment with a very stubborn hokage.

When Shizune asked if she wanted help inside the office Sakura politely but firmly declined, letting the two know she'd like to see them for lunch the next day if she wasn't still sleeping. Leaving her at the door was difficult, not just because she was so weak she needed support, but because they'd both just had a close friend come back to life and they didn't want to let her go just yet, but at Shizune's insistent tugging on her sleeve Tsunade finally reluctantly let herself be led away.

Neither she nor Sakura could see the smirk gracing the brunette's face.

It had been over twenty hours. While he knew that was to be expected for this type of extreme procedure, Kakashi was still close to his limit. He stared out the window at the dark night sky, at the hokage monument where he and Team Kakashi had once shared a picnic, where Naruto still swore his visage would be one day, and wondered if that day would now come more quickly with the blonde's best friend back to life.

He was going stir-crazy, but at the knock on his door he found he was suddenly dreading what was coming and wished he had a little longer still. Without waiting for a reply Sakura strode in, as he'd known she would, wearing the big baggy shirt and pants of a jounin. They always had extra on hand, considering some shinobi had clothes too damaged to be considered decent once released from the hospital, and he assumed Shizune must've grabbed them for her. She was the one who'd started stashing them around in the first place.

Pity he had to ruin them.

With a flick of his wrist he sent a kunai sailing across the room, catching Sakura's shirt at the shoulder and pinning her to the door.

"Kakashi, what's this about?" she cried, indignation flaring. She let her feet sink back flat against the floor and winced slightly as she heard another tear. Taking a peek she was glad to see it had only ripped a small hole. She reached for the kunai to remove it but he forestalled her.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. I have more and I want you where I can see you for now."

Sakura just rolled her eyes. She'd have put up more of a fight but frankly at the moment she was just too exhausted. Besides, on some level she'd known he wouldn't accept things so easily and he'd have to be convinced of her legitimacy again. "Do you really think Shizune or Tsunade would've let me anywhere around here if they hadn't already verified who I am?"

Kakashi conceded the point. "Since they were in the room though their judgment could've been compromised if Kabuto pulled something with an unknown technique, so I'll just have to be an outside observer for now."

"Okay, fine, let's just get on with it so I can sit down."

He asked her question after question, much more detailed, in-depth, and personal than the questioning he'd performed with Kabuto present, but that was to be expected as well. This was, after all, the final test. Finally though he was satisfied, pronouncing it in such an anti-climactic way, such a typical Kakashi thing to do, it nearly made her laugh.

"I suppose I'll have to find Tsunade and Shizune later to have them void this death certificate then."

Sakura beamed. "I take it this means I can take this out now then?" she asked, already pulling the kunai free. She spun it on her finger, reacquainting herself with the feel of it, running the point lightly across the pad of her thumb, then threw it at the wall. It wobbled a bit on the way but its aim was true.

Kakashi didn't make any other move to stop her as she marched across the room – as much as she could in a slowed, trembling body – and stopped right in front of him. "Sit down," she commanded, and he did so without a word. If she was coming to seek retribution for all he'd put her through these last months then he wasn't going to fight her on it.

She put one knee on the chair outside of his, her balance failing her and her hands caught the armrests. He reached out to steady her but she snapped, "No! No, I can do this," and his hands retreated. Finally with a large push she got her other knee up, her face hovering dangerously over his.

He didn't like where this was going; she was far too close for comfort. Perhaps this was her vengeance – slow torture?

Panting lightly, she sank back on her knees, grinning devilishly at him. "Not too bad, eh?"

One eyebrow rose. "Wouldn't it just have been easier to sit across my legs in the first place?"

She shook her head. "Then I would've had to twist to look at you, and twisting is no good for my torso right now." She reached for his face then and slowly pulled down his mask. "What, no complaints?"

He shrugged. He'd already unintentionally showed her, of his own volition, so there was little point in making a fuss at the moment.

She leaned back, studying him, then pulled down the collar on her shirt to show a vicious scar starting at her neck and going straight down. He remembered that one, vividly, and didn't like the reminder of seeing her body cut wide open. Something of his displeasure must've shown, perhaps he'd even winced, because she let the collar go.

"It bothers you?"

"Of course it does. Who wouldn't-" At her crestfallen look he realized his mistake. "Oh, you mean the scar itself. Not in the least. It's simply evidence of all you've been through and conquered, right?"

She beamed and he knew he'd answered correctly. His hands clenched nervously, wondering when the punishment would start, and he realized they'd somehow found their way onto her knees. He tried to pull them away without her noticing what he'd been doing, but she grasped his face.

"Leave 'em," she whispered, just before she pulled his face to hers and kissed him.

The world went blank and nothing made sense anymore but he didn't care because her lips were decidedly the best thing he'd ever felt. Part of him was still wary, but he knew even Sakura wouldn't go this far just for revenge, and as that revelation washed over him and he realized the only reason she would kiss him was because she wanted to, all his inhibitions fell to the wayside.

His hands flexed convulsively against her knees before they moved up, seeking skin that wasn't marred by cuts and stitches and staples, that he wouldn't risk damaging by holding onto. He finally found it just above her hip, but one hand wouldn't stop and he found himself raising it to her head, catching in her hair to pull her closer to him.

She pulled back on a laugh. "I didn't know if you'd still be interested now that you knew it was actually me."

He didn't say anything, just placed his mouth over hers again, despite her giggling, and that was all the answer she needed. Her hands ran all over him, hardly stopping, as if making up for so much lost time, and she learned the contours of his face by touch, ran her fingers through his hair, and held onto his back as she learned the taste of him.

Kakashi felt her trembling against him, and while at first his ego soared at her reaction, he quickly realized sheepishly that it was the wear on her body. His hands traced over her again and found the source primarily in her legs, folded up the way they were.

"Hold on," he whispered against her mouth, picking her up and sitting her on his desk, shoving over a couple piles of papers to make room, uncaring when they crashed to the floor. "Better?"

He felt more than saw her smile. "Yes."

Her heart warmed when she felt him lean back slightly so that she could rest against his chest, barely having to hold herself upright, and she took immediate advantage by pressing herself closer to him, focusing on memorizing the texture of his lips.

She wished she could've gone on for hours, days even, but her body was already taxed beyond its limits and she could feel it starting to shut down. She pulled her hands from around his neck, her shoulders quaking with the effort, and tucked her fingers into the arm-holes of his vest so that she could still feel something of him. With a muffled groan of disappointment she pulled back from their kiss, her forehead resting against his shoulder.

He chuckled low, the vibrations resonating through her. "Looks like you could use some rest. I take it your reunion with the rest of the village is on hold until tomorrow?"

At his words she yawned hugely, regretting her first day back was cut so short. "I guess so," she said, snuggling further into him. "Sleep sounds good. I don't know about the whole village tomorrow though. I'll probably only have the energy to deal with Naruto and maybe Ino."

"You let either one of those know and it'll be as good as telling the whole village."

She gave a short laugh. "Sounds about right. I guess I'll let them take care of that then and you can make sure I'm not stampeded by the entire village coming to visit me. I am rather popular, you know."

He sighed in mock exasperation before his expression turned soft as he looked down at the top of her head. "We need to find you a bed then. Your apartment isn't really your apartment anymore. You want me to get you one of the private hospital rooms?"

"Mm, no," she said, sounding half asleep already. "I like it right here."

He was quiet a moment, considering. "You want to come home with me?"

She nodded drowsily and he doubted she even understood what he was saying, but she burrowed closer against him and he took that as assent. Without a second thought he transported them in a puff of smoke, luxuriating in these few quiet, precious hours he had her to himself before the whole world came knocking to see the girl back from the dead.

Honestly he was grateful she'd come with him. He constantly had to reassure himself this was real, that it wasn't a dream, that he hadn't really cracked up and imagined it all. He held her against him all through the night, reaffirming her life with her heartbeat against his chest, his hand against her back confirming the sensation.

And when tomorrow he refused to let go of her hand he could explain it away with a flick of his thumb across her pulse. They could deal with those questions later, as she chose.

Come tomorrow, they could face it all together.

END

And thanks be to Anteros, who twists the hands of fate so subtly and skillfully that two people on different paths are thrown together to find happiness beyond their original destinations, and without whom most of these stories would have no hope.

(Anteros being the god of requited love)

And, as promised, the (short) rendition of Pygmalion and Galatea's are many different versions, as is typical, so here's one of them:

Pygmalion was a sculptor (or sometimes a king who sculpted), who created a statue so lovely he fell in love with it. He wasted away for his longing, a servant girl having to come bring him food, and the goddess Aphrodite was so moved by his love that she brought the statue to life. The two married and lived happily ever after. (One of the few Greek myths with a happy ending - huzzah!)