For those that read my Lupin story- not to worry, I'm still working on that one. I'm just going to go back and forth. I actually wrote this story forever ago and am just cleaning it up to get a small break inbetween Lupin chapters. So, enjoy!

I rinsed the blood and mess from my hands then pushed away the sweat soaked bangs from my face. Dark plum hair that normally freely fell to my waist was tied up in a messy bun as so not to get in the way. A friend in the village needed a mid-wife and I was the only one around that could help. The village healer had died a few years ago and was stupid enough not to leave an apprentice. As I was the only one with a little medical knowledge, I became somewhat of a healer, learning what else I needed as I went along.

"Are you ready to go back to your house now, Shizuru? Or will you stay and eat with us...even if it is well past dinner?" a boy said from behind me. From the sound of his voice, it was Jorin, the now 9-year-old big brother of the newly delivered baby. I wiped my hands on a cloth and turned to smile at Jorin.

"I think I should go home," I told him.

"Alright," he said and took my hand so he could lead me home. After the first year, I insisted I knew the layout of the land but the villagers figured it was my streak of pride talking. True, it would take longer, but I could always figure out my way home.

"Tree root," Jorin warned me. I liked my privacy and Jorin was the best at walking to and from town. He always did so well, even if he never worked with a blind person before. He smiled a lot, always happy, people said. He told me he had light brown hair and matching eyes and a few freckles that speckled his cheeks. From what I could feel, his face was slender and soft with a button nose and a wide set mouth. 15 minutes later of walking and him chattering about the new baby, he said, "Here we are." Jorin placed my hand on the doorframe of house. I smiled and gently pushed his back.

"You know where the sweets are. Go ahead." He laughed gleefully and ran inside. I went inside and started to brush my hair out. A few minutes later, Jorin tapped the leaf village head plate I wore on my left thigh. Knowing his signal, I leaned my head down so he could give my cheek a sticky kiss before he left.

"I'll see you later!" he called as he ran out the door. I shook my head and finished combing my hair then went outside. The dark green over-suit I wore over my navy blue shirt and pants rustled as I walked through the small grove behind my cottage. Honestly, the place was a bit big for me, but it was the old healer's before he died. My special rock I used for meditation was there, as it always was. Nothing in the grove ever moved; it never had surprises. I sat on the rock tailor style and closed my near useless eyes. Secretly, I defined them as 'near useless' because of my ninja training and kekkai genki. If I focused my chakra to my eyes, I could see the life force of the things around me. It was like seeing in black and white and only outlines, but it was better than not seeing at all. Now, seeing while meditating wasn't exactly a jutsu, just chakra manipulation. I breathed in slowly, counting to 6, held it for 6 counts, and let it out counting to 6. Feeling my mind calm, I opened my eyes half way. I could see the white outlines of the trees around me and smiled slightly. The chakra flowed through my body, allowing me to see without using it. Using chakra for the eyes was difficult and very exhausting, as it required so much of it and in such a concentrated state.

Footsteps broke my quiet meditation. The sound came from South, the opposite direction of the village. Deftly slipping a kunai knife into my hand, I ran up a tree to hide and wait to see if the person was friendly or intended harm. The soft footsteps got louder and there was more than one person. I could actually feel their chakra before I 'saw' them. The amount was ridiculous! It took a moment to distinguish that there were four of them, shinobi warriors by the feel of it. Then one moved away and seemingly vanished.

He appeared behind me and said harshly, "That wasn't a good idea." And he kicked me. Mentally berating myself for falling for a genin mistake, I swiveled my body around and landed on my feet, jumping away in time not to be hit again by the ninja that had followed me down. I didn't skimp on my chakra this time though and focused it into my eyes, actually using the refined jutsu this time. The ninja was advancing on me, so I let him, dodging a few well-thrown kicks and punches. He's only fairly advanced. A genin, perhaps? Maybe chunin. I took one of his arms and pulled it, sending him airborne and kicked him hard in the stomach. He went down hard and clutched his middle. A girl shrieked.

"Sasuke!" The girl was supporting the fourth shinobi. Another of the hostile ninjas ran toward me. He was taller than the others and faster. I reacted before he even reached the first ninja and kicked him hard. He didn't try to defend himself. From his body position and open mouth, he was staring at me. I lunged at him with my kunai knife and he quickly blocked it. Still, he didn't attack, only defended. This puzzled and unnerved me. It took a good few minutes, but I finally got him on the floor with a tornado kick followed by a floor sweep. I sat on his chest, breathing heavily from the energy used to support my eyes, and held the knife at his throat.

"Don't move, or he dies!" I shouted at his team. The first ninja was standing again and he opened his hand, supposedly letting his weapon fall.

"Kakashi-sensei!" the girl shouted, distressed.

"Kakashi?" I repeated and looked with colorless eyes at the man underneath me.

"Hello, Shizuru," he said breathlessly, though it could have been because I was sitting on him.

Kakashi's POV

Shizuru stood up and helped Kakashi to stand, strong for her petite 5'4". He knew she'd be here, but actually seeing her, alive and breathing, was something different. Trying to shake off the feeling, he rubbed his neck where she had pressed her knife and went to check on Sasuke. He was just fine, though his pride was damaged a bit.

"We need your help," the sensei said. "It's good to know you're where you said you would be." Exhausted, Shizuru sat down and rubbed her eyes. Kakashi looked down at her, the deadening feeling he got around her creeping through his body. "I didn't realize we had already made it to the village. My student noticed you in the tree and thought we had another assassin on our hands, so I let him go ahead." Shizuru looked in Sasuke's direction.

"My apologies, Sasuke, was it?"

"You fight very well," was his only answer.

"Uh, Kakashi-sensei?" the jounin's only female student asked.

"Yes, Sakura?"

"Naruto is looking really bad..."

"Oh, right," he said in his pleasant voice, belying the turmoil he felt inside. He knew Shizuru, obviously. Back when the two were young shinobi, he was placed on her team. Due to an accident, she left the Village Hidden in the Leaves not long after she became a chunin. "Shizuru, you're still the best chakra manipulator I know. And you're the closest one here. Sakura," he beckoned. She came forward, half dragging Naruto. Sasuke took half the burden and helped his friend, to Sakura's great pleasure. Kakashi squatted in front of Shizuru. "This is Naruto Uzumaki. His chakra levels are going through the roof and his body can't handle it right now. It's eating away at him," he explained, though not meeting her gaze, blind or not. She nodded and offered a hand. Hesitantly, he pulled her up.

"My house is right there. Take him inside and lay him down," Shizuru instructed Kakashi's students as she looked in their direction. She did rather well for not being able to see. His students looked at him for confirmation so he jerked his head in the direction of the house. They complied.

"Is this the same Uzumaki that the nine-tailed fox was sealed in?" she asked when they were gone. The jounin nodded gravely, and then remembered that she couldn't see it.

"Yeah. It's gotten more restless. We recently had an encounter with Zabuza Momochi and when Sasuke got in trouble, Naruto went feral. He calmed down easy enough, but it still worried me," Kakashi told her, still not meeting her empty gaze. The dead feeling was all over his body now, so he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it," Shizuru told him happily, though her smile didn't quite meet her eyes... her gray, empty eyes. Ashamed, he turned away. Oblivious, Shizuru confidently walked back to her house, Kakashi a few steps behind.

Shizuru's POV

The genin had placed their friend on the sick mat in the back room. Kakashi followed me inside and sat across from me. Sakura sat next to him and Sasuke leaned against the wall behind me. Naruto's energy was seeping from him. I felt like he was going to drown me with it.

"Oh, my..." I murmured.

Kakashi asked, "Are you sure you can do it?"

"Of course I can!" I snapped. I spread my hands over Naruto, breathing like I would to meditate. I placed two of my fingers on the boy's inner-elbow and held his arm down with my other hand. The energy all around me looked for someone to use it. Only needing the smallest fraction of the amount around me, I allowed some to enter my skin for later use. Usually, this was almost unheard of, but this was me and the nine-tailed fox. Special things will happen to this boy... I pressed my fingers into the first pressure point, forcing some of his chakra back into his body. He needed a dam, not a pure blockage, as he still needed to use jutsus. His chakra was almost tangible to me, so I bodily reached out and pulled it back to his body and near closed it off, one pressure point at a time. Come to think of it, most chakra was tangible to me. 15 minutes later, I was almost done. Normally, this would have been extremely hard, but I used his chakra for the energy, not my own. And I also made his chakra dams using his own chakra so that over time, it would come out naturally and allow his body time to adjust to it or until he learned to call on it himself. The mass of his chakra still posed a problem, so I wound it up like a thread on a spool and let the little bit I took inside myself mask the spool. Because it was tinted with my own chakra, it wouldn't merge with what was inside him and acted like a dam itself. At least for a little while. I sat back and closed my eyes, even more tired than before. I didn't expel much of my own chakra, but it was still exhausting. Sakura sighed loudly, relieved.

"Thank you. From him and me. It was so hard to breathe like that."

"Sakura has a talent for recognizing and using chakra. It sometimes gets the better of her," Kakashi explained.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to see you," I told the girl kindly, not having really looked at them when the seeing jutsu was up. She said nothing.

"Go to her," Kakashi murmured. Sakura walked over to me and sat, still quiet. I gently ran my fingers over her face, memorizing her wide eyes, dainty nose, large forehead, and stubborn chin.

"Colors?" I inquired.

"Green-blue eyes, pink hair, and kind of pale skin," she murmured.

"I won't bite," I told her with a smile as my fingers traced her slim shoulders.

"You're very pretty," I told her. She looked away and muttered a thank you. From the positioning of her body, I felt that she had looked at Sasuke first then away from me. How cute. Now where have I seen this complication before?

"Sasuke?" I beckoned. It took a few minutes, but he complied.

I performed the same method and he answered, "Black hair, black brown eyes, and skin a shade darker than Sakura's."

"A real looker, now, aren't you?" I had already memorized Naruto's features so I 'looked' at Kakashi.

"I haven't changed," he said shortly. "I just got taller." I shrugged and stood then went into the other room to hide my disappointment. I fixed some drinks for my guests and brought them to the ninjas.

"Naruto won't be fit for travel for about a week. I don't want him to get out of bed and I won't ask you to leave him. You're welcome to stay here until then," I told them.

"Thank you. I'm grateful," Kakashi told me. I smiled, my heart in it this time.

"Alright. Naruto will have to stay in the sick room. If you don't mind sharing Kakashi, you and Sasuke will take the room at the end of the hall and Sakura can have the room on its left."

"That's fine," Kakashi said. I heard him get up and he patted my shoulder.

"It's nice seeing you again," he murmured. Butterflies fluttered through my stomach at his touch. I smiled up at him.

"Same here." I had missed him so much. Used to be that I had more than enough of him on the road during missions. I told them all goodnight and went back outside, reliving memories from my ninja days. I missed them. I missed the danger, the missions, the team...

"Shizuru-sensei!" a familiar voice screamed.

"Uh-oh." I ran inside and pushed my chakra into my eyes. They were starting to hurt from the over-use. Four people were in the front room, one holding another on the floor and the other two in a ready stance in case the supposed intruder decided to fight. I sighed, relieved it wasn't something bad.

"It's okay, Kakashi. That's my apprentice, Yohmei. You can get your foot off his back, now," I explained, releasing the jutsu again. Kakashi let him up.

"Sorry about that. We thought you were breaking in." Sasuke lost interest and went back to his room, Sakura following his example.

"Shizuru-sensei?" Yohmei asked, feelings more hurt than anything else.

"Sorry, Yohmei. I thought you'd be home tomorrow morning at earliest. This is Kakashi. He is the other three ninja's teacher. One had some problems so I helped out."

"So...they're not here to kill us..."

"No."

"Well, now that that's cleared up, I'm going to bed," Kakashi announced and headed for the room I told him to sleep in.

"Um, why is he going into your room? You're not...not that it's my business...but are you?" he asked. I sighed, remembering how good looking Kakashi was when we were younger.

"I wish," I muttered.

"Huh?"

"No, we're not. It's bigger, so I gave it to the boys." Tough only 19, the man was the only person with an aptitude for medicine in the small village. True, he could be a bit over protective, but he was nice in his own jealous way. Jorin told me that Yohmei was white-blond and had brown eyes. My fingers told of a straight nose and high cheekbones. He put the things away before going to bed himself.

Kakashi's POV

Kakashi sat on Shizuru's bed, staring a hole in the wall. Sasuke slept on his left. He couldn't sleep. It wasn't even a year after he got paired with Shizuru and Naru because of the loss of his original team that they got in over their heads. Kakashi was the leading jounin and the other two were chunin, all cocky as hell. The three requested a B or A rank mission. But they failed. Miserably. And it cost Kakashi everything. It cost him Shizuru. She had so much potential. He had been made a jounin before they were even close to 15 and Shizuru had just as much talent. She could have taken the test, but refused to just so she could have the chance to work near Kakashi. And this is what came of it. Sighing, he slipped out of the room and went outside to breathe. It had been so hard all these years. Shizuru dropped out after that last assignment and Kakashi went on ahead without her. Everything was my fault.

"Kakashi? Why aren't you asleep?" Shizuru asked him from up ahead. She didn't even turn. Not that it mattered.

"How did you know it was me?"

"I know you. I take it you still haven't given up those dirty books you carry around, either, pervert." For once, he was glad she couldn't see, but the darkness and his mask would have hid his blush anyway.

"Who you calling a pervert, ya little runt?" he told her, true to the banter script from when they were younger. She stamped her foot angrily at him.

"Shizuru, I-"

"Don't you dare say it Kakashi Hatake," she warned. She knew. He smiled sadly.

"I was just going to say you've grown up quite nicely." Kakashi could just make out Shizuru's deep blush as she muttered her thanks. He laughed aloud. She had never been one for compliments.

"Isn't it pretty out here?" she asked. He looked around. The grove was nice, but he didn't know she could tell. As far as he knew, Shizuru had never visited this part of the Land of Waves before...just before.

"Erm, it's pretty."

"Yeah. Well, I'm calling it. Night," she said and went inside without another word.

Shizuru's POV

I woke the next day and checked how Naruto was doing. He hadn't rejected the treatment overnight; I knew because I slept in the same room to make sure he was OK. The boy still slept soundly. Slipping quietly from the room, I marveled at how the boy had lasted this long with the 9-tailed fox inside him. I started work on breakfast, becoming slightly depressed when I realized I was making food for more than 2. Not that I really minded- cooking was fun and years of practice made me pretty good even without my sight- it was just because Kakashi was there. Years ago, I wouldn't have minded. I had even fantasized about cooking him breakfast after a night of- I shook my head to get the image from my mind and the blush from my cheeks. Now the man was just depressing and sad around me, no matter how indifferent he acted. It's not like I didn't know why. Kakashi blamed himself for my blindness. Time and time again, I told him to think nothing of it, but he remained the same. Before it was a crush that wore itself out by the time I left but now... now he was just special. There weren't any other words that I felt could describe it.

"Here, let me cut that for you," he said, coming from the back room and taking the cutting knife from my hand.

"Thank you Kakashi, but I can do it myself," I told him. It was the little things like that that annoyed me. He treated me like an invalid child just because I couldn't see.

"Nonsense. I don't want you hurting yourself."

"I won't hurt myself."

"But there's always the chance-"

"Everything in our world is chance, Kakashi! You can't get rid of it or protect everyone from it. So deal. Now go get the kids up. Breakfast is almost done." He shoved the knife back in my hand. The harshness of the thrust told me how annoyed he was. A few moments later, Sakura and Sasuke trudged into the room.

"Naruto too?" the jounin asked placidly. He was putting up a front for his students so I obliged him.

"Yes, Naruto too. He should be starving."

First meal went smoothly. That is, until Naruto spoke up...

"Hey! Your eyes are colored funny. Why is that, Shizuru-san?" he asked brightly. He just seemed happy that he noticed a detail.

"Naruto! That is not something you bring up!" Sakura admonished him. I sighed. Here we go again. By now, I was used to it but it did tend to get old.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Very untactful," Sasuke said.

"I don't get it. What's the big deal about colorless eyes? She's not a Hyuuga…"

"She's blind, Naruto," Kakashi told his student quietly.

"Oh! How'd that happen?" Naruto asked me excitedly.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted at him.

"Shhh! You'll wake up Yohmei," I told them. "He needs his sleep- I've been running him ragged."

"If you don't mind my asking," Sakura said after a few silent minutes, "how did you get blind? Were you born that way?" I heard a sharp intake of breath- I assumed it was Kakashi.

"There was incident on a mission," I said shortly.

"Oooh! Really? That's one crazy battle scar!" Naruto exclaimed, awe evident in his voice. "Tell us how it happened!"

"...perhaps later..."

In the afternoon, Naruto passed out. I wasn't surprised. I only wanted him to eat and go back to bed but he insisted on his training with the others. He planned on being Hokage ("Believe it!"). When he said that the first time, I flinched. At the mention of his ambitions, a tremendous amount of energy flared from him. It was like the 9-tailed fox couldn't wait for the power. While Kakashi worked with the other two, I stayed with Naruto, making sure he didn't relapse in his sleep.

It was strange. It was like the amount of excess energy Naruto gave off seeped into me. I woke up the next few days feeling stronger, more powerful. But I paid it no never-mind. Only my ninja training kept me from screaming when I woke up the sixth morning. I could see. Eh, not very well, though. It was mostly dark, blurry shapes but that was more than pitch-blackness. Forcing myself to act normal, I went to the kitchen to find Kakashi and two of his students talking over what smelled like leftovers.

"-ly like her, don't you Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked.

"Always the romantic, eh Sakura?" he replied.

"Don't be ridiculous, Sakura," Sasuke told her. "Sensei already told us that everyone he loved was dead." I winced.

"That's not harsh whatsoever," I joked, making myself known. I could see Kakashi's tall, blurry shadow get up and go out the kitchen door. I stared. "I was just playing," I muttered and helped myself to the food.

"He's kinda different around you," Sakura observed. "Won't you tell us how you knew him?" I shrugged.

"I went to school with him. He knew lots of people."

"Then maybe the story of your 'great battle scar' as Naruto likes to call it?" I sighed and sat down.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"10 in the morning," Sasuke said.

"Get Naruto up. He needs to eat and he'll complain if we leave him out of the loop. Loudly too," I told them. Though both hesitated, Sakura finally went to get him.

"Naruto is so oblivious, he doesn't even know there is a loop," Sasuke said, earning a laugh from me. Naruto came in and ate, already wide awake...and loud.

"I got blind because my team and I were way too overconfident. We set ourselves up for failure. One of my teammates died in front of me and the other was about to be put out of commission. By a solar flare jutsu I might add. If he lost his sight, all of us would be dead. I didn't think about that, oddly enough- just to protect him. I jumped to push him away and the light scalded my eyes instead. Lord Hokage thought it'd be best if I took some time to recover…but I never went back." They were all silent for a long time. Then-

"You didn't answer my other question. Why does Kakashi-sensei act so different around you?" Sakura asked. He really hasn't told them anything.

"Kakashi has always hated quitters. I disappointed him because I gave up. I told him I wouldn't give up, but I did."

"Do you regret it? Saving your teammate and falling from the ninja ranks?" Sasuke asked.

and that's chapter 1 everybody! hope you enjoyed it. please review. it would make me oh so happy if you did