Chapter Seventeen

"Are you drunk-!?" Kakashi barged into the newly renovated office, his tone ascendant as his exposed eye hardened like glistening winter ice. Itachi glared at the masked man as he walked directly into Sakura's personal space; whose face felt hot to the light touch. "-you are." Kakashi concluded, his hand cupping the side of her right cheek.

"I-" Sakura went to speak but Kakashi turned away from her words, pressing himself in-between Itachi and Sakura.

"What do you think you are doing!?" Kakashi's imperious tone sent tingling shivers trailing up Sakura's arms. Kakashi glared edged daggers into Itachi's expressionless face.

"What am I doing?" Itachi countered with a snarky question. "What are you doing here?"

"She is clearly drunk-" Kakashi gestured to Sakura whose drunken head was still spinning from Itachi's unsuspecting kiss along with Kakashi's presence.

"She is not-" Itachi went to roll his eyes.

"She is." Kakashi stated, taking an assertive step forward. "What do you think you're-?"

"I don't have to explain myself to you-" Itachi said crossing his muscular arms over his broad chest. "-you're not Hokage just yet."

"You do when your taking advantage of an intoxicated woman-"

"I would never take advantage of her-!"

"Yeah I am standing right here." Sakura rose her hand, pushing Kakashi to the side so she could see Itachi.

"Sakura-" Itachi breathed, feeling an ravenous urge to reach out and touch her. "-are you-"

"I swear to God if you're going to ask me if I am ok; I will punch you through that wall." Sakura snapped.

"Sakura you can't-" Itachi sighed, his chest pounding rapidly, he couldn't believe he just reached out and kissed her the way he did! His chest felt like it was filled with sweet spindles of cotton candy.

"I can-" Sakura added, "-because it's mine." Itachi didn't stop the smile from spreading like melted butter across his face. She was so proud of her office, he found it was so adorable.

"Sakura-" Kakashi turned around to see her swaying on her feet. "-let me get you home."

"Huh?" Sakura blinked as she quickly got out of Kakashi's reach. "I'm not a child, I can-"

"You have been drinking." Kakashi said, "You need to get home."

"And you need to fuck off." Sakura spat, hating the way he made her feel like she was a disappointment just because she went out and had a few simple drinks. "Guess we are both screwed." She said walking around him.

"Sakura-?" Kakashi tried again to reach out and take her hand, not understanding what she meant by her statement.

"Don't fucking touch me-!" Sakura bit glaring into his exposed eye, liquid anger ignited itself inside her chest, pumping her full of a rage she didn't know she had been sitting on. "-you lost the right a long time ago." Sakura turned on her heel and exited the room.

Itachi sighed rubbing his face with his right hand, he wanted this to be a fun filled night, and not end in some type of fight. He should never had kissed her but...what if Kakashi never interrupted?

What could have happened between them?

Itachi needed to find Sakura, she was drunk and walking around at night. Granted she may now be the new village commander; he didn't want to take any risks when it came down to her safety.

"Where do you think you're going?" Itachi snapped his head towards Kakashi who was moving to exit the room.

Kakashi's exposed eye was seething as he turned to glance back at the man who had just placed his hands on his Sakura Haruno.

"I don't answer to you."

----

The sidewalk swayed side to side like a boat sitting on gentle waves as Sakura walked away from the Hokage Tower, the damn tiles were moving around making it hard for Sakura to keep on track where the sidewalk was leading her.

Sakura gazed up to the clear sky; she felt heart sickened as Kakashi standing in the doorway with another man kissing her vividly replayed inside her head, tears threatened to spill over as she shook her head questioning herself as to why she ever stepped foot back inside this village.

Why hadn't she just stayed away?

She knew she was too dark, too twisted ever fit back inside this scintillating village.

"How long are you going to track me?" Sakura asked turning to gaze at the somber tree lining behind her.

"I'm impressed-" His deepened voice sent chills over through her body. Kakashi appeared a few yards behind her, "-I didn't think you would be able to sense me."

"You thought wrong." Sakura replied, "Why are you stalking me?"

"Whether you like it or not, you shouldn't be outside alone at night."

"I think I can handle myself."

"I know you can-" Kakashi said moving closer, "-when your sober."

This was not how Sakura pictured her first encounter with Kakashi after being freed from Hanare's jutsu. A large piece of her was praying that somehow, some fairy tail way Kakashi would have woken up as the man she remembered, the man who loved her so deeply.

Sakura pulled air in between her lips as she sighed looking around the drab streets of the hidden leaf village, she was beginning to believe that man was truly gone for forever.

"Where is Itachi?" Sakura wondered out loud, why hadn't he followed her?

Was that kiss simply due to all the alcohol from the party?

"He..." Kakashi trailed off for a moment, "...got tied up with something."

"What did you do?" Sakura questioned.

"I didn't put him through one of your walls." Kakashi smirked under his mask, Sakura studied him with a foggy brain.

The moon light shined brightly around him, reflecting off his sliver hair making him appear as if he were glowing. "What did you mean?" Kakashi questioned, his hands casually resting inside the pockets of his pants.

"Huh?" Sakura tilted her head, making Kakashi smirk from underneath his mask.

"When you said-" Kakashi corrected his question, "-I lost the right to touch you-"

"You have got to be kidding-" Sakura muttered shaking her head, "-just fuck off Kakashi." Sakura said not feeling up to carrying out a conversation with him tonight. She could feel the numbness beginning to ware off, she felt her nerves and tired bones.

"Sakura-" Kakashi said, closing the space in between them as he gently grabbed her wrist. "-talk to me."

"Oh-" Sakura colorlessly laughed, "-now you want to talk?"

"Yes." Kakashi answered,

"No." Sakura shook her head, "I'm not doing this."

"Why can't you look at me?" Kakashi wondered gazing down onto her dainty face. The truth was Sakura couldn't. To look at him now felt like she had a walking, talking, breathing ghost of the man she loved haunting her everyday life.

Sakura was aware she had died in his arms; she left her mark on this earth and her time was done but now she had been ripped back into a reality she couldn't recognize.

Pieces of her believed she died and remained dead, this was her hell.

"You don't want to have to this conversation-" The venom inside her voice dripped off the letters as she turned to look up into Kakashi's exposed eye. "-with me, not right now."

"I think now is the perfect time." Kakashi commented, "Why weren't you around after you returned-?"

"Excuse me?" Sakura sneered, locking her sights onto him. "What in the hell did you just say to me I may be a little drunk, but I don't think I quiet heard you right."

"Why did you leave the village after you returned from the Reaper's control?" Kakashi stepped closer, he reached out brushing a few strands of her hair between his fingers. "Why weren't you around, you could have sensed-"

"It is my fault?" Sakura blinked, trying to wrap her head around his words.

"What? No, well-"

"Alright-" Sakura glared taking a step away from Kakashi; "-how about you break that down for me, nice and slow?"

"Hm?"

"It's somehow my fault that when I was dead, you got trapped inside your girlfriends-?"

"Hanare isn't my girlfriend-"

"Oh, forgive me-" Sakura darkly laughed, "-your fuck buddies-"

"She is the woman who had me locked inside a mind jutsu."

"How did you let that happen? Hm?" Sakura thought out loud, "How could the all mighty Kakashi Hatake get overpowered by a petite little woman like Hanare Takeda?"

"I-" Kakashi's chest squeezed.

"Because you were fucking her right?" Sakura answered for him, running her tongue over her lips as she shook her head. "Are you really going to stand there and blame me for you getting your ass hustled?"

"I-"

"Where were you?" Sakura asked,

"H-Huh?"

"When I returned-" Sakura clarified, "-where were you when I returned and needed you the most?"

"I was-"

"You were next door, fucking the village spy." Sakura pothered.

"Sakura that isn't fair-"

"I am sorry-" Sakura cut in, "-that I wasn't really around when you came back from the Reaper's control, I really wanted to be but unlike me you returned from the dead with a missing memory and took one look at me and decided I wasn't good enough for you!"

"Sakura, that isn't-"

"No, it fucking is and don't try to spin it with your pretty words and make it something else because the truth of the matter is unlike you I didn't fucking come back take one look at you and go 'Oops, my bad, dated my teacher how fucking embarrassing!' I didn't leave the village because I wanted too, I left because I had to."

"What-"

"I sat inside Carver's apartment in a fucking daze, with my head pounding so loud I could barely hear anything around me. My eyes burned for weeks-" Sakura shouted, tears filling her eyes. "-it didn't matter if it was dark, bright or fucking blue, everything ached!"

"Sakura-" Kakashi breathed out, moving closer watching the tears spill over her eyes.

"My chest felt like it was kicked in, every piece of my body hurt. I had no control over my seal or my eyes and I could take all of that-" Sakura breathed, "-but listening to you fuck that whore in the next room, that is why I left and now you have the balls to stand there and ask me why I didn't stay? Why I couldn't just sense the jutsu being used on you when I couldn't even process the fact I was even back from the dead!?"

"I am sorry-"

"I don't care." Sakura shook her head wiping the tears from her face. "I don't care anymore, I can't-"

"Just listen to me-"

"No!" Sakura shouted, taking a step back from him. "You are going to be what puts me back into my grave and I will be damned if that happens! You are not worth going through that hell again!"

"I would never let you." Kakashi breathed moving closer to her, his hands gently gripping her sides testing the waters to see if she would allow this.

"No." Sakura gasped willing the tears to stop, "You can't spin your way out of this one Hatake."

"I don't want to." Kakashi breathed as he leaned forward, with his left hand he pulled his mask down as his right arm snaked around Sakura's waist pulling her into him. The moment his lips landed on hers, Sakura's body melted against Kakashi's. Her eyes fluttered closed on their own account causing the butterflies inside her stomach to activate flying laps around her stomach as her knees felt weak.

Kakashi's left hand found its way into her long luscious pink hair, he gripped a fist full before lightly pulling her head back. Sakura moaned gripping the front of his shirt as she dives in needing to feel him against her. Kakashi euphorically obliged lustfully engorging on her lips.

The fact they were standing in the middle of a bare street dissolved away. Sakura's heart was hammering away inside her chest, weaving tasty electricity coursing through her body.

Kakashi never understood the moment he read so many times in novels when two people came together, when they felt the world fade away, everything and everyone blurred out and it would be just those two people left inside their own personal moment...Kakashi never understood this feeling until he met her. Feeling her against his body, made him feel so warm and so comfortable nothing else in the world mattered.

"Kakashi-" Sakura moaned feeling his mouth leave her lips only to dip down onto her exposed neck sucking and nibbling along the soft tissue. "I-" Sakura groaned, feeling herself getting turned on. Tingling pressure began to build between her legs as she leaned her head to the side giving Kakashi more access to her neck.

"Hanare." Kakashi breathed against Sakura's neck.

"What-?" Sakura's eyes snapped open, the delightful pressure between her thighs receded back into her body as she pulled away from a confused looking Kakashi. The soldier and shinobi stared at each other; Sakura shook her head pulling her lips together. "I am so stupid." Sakura breathed running her dominant hand through her ruffled hair.

"No-" Kakashi said, "-your-" Kakashi blinked looking towards the ground as his body felt like it was being drained of all energy. "-please wait-!" Kakashi called seeing Sakura turned to walk away.

"No-" Sakura scrunched her face in annoyance.

"Where are you going!?" Kakashi called as his eye began to burn.

"It is my night after all-" Sakura looked over her shoulder, "- so I'm going to go enjoy it."

"Sakura-"

"Oh, now you get my name right." Sakura said, spinning on her heel in the direction of the café where Naruto and the others were still held up, drinking away their names.

P.O.V. Change: Kakashi Hatake

My head pounding against my skull was the first thing that reached me as I slowly stirred awake, I blinked my burning eyes as I sat up. I felt terrible, the sunlight sleeking through the curtains agitating my eye. A huff of air slid out from my chest as I got up and pulled the curtains closed making my bedroom black as the beautiful night sky.

Why do I feel so miserable and strung out? I am painfully stone cold sober; I didn't have one drop to drink last night. Despite Guy and Asuma trying to push drinking onto me last night.

I need coffee.

Coffee always makes everything better.

Ruffling my hair with my hands I turned from the window as I felt the pressured headache inside my head start to grow. "Ah." I muffled, pulling my hands to grip the sides of my head as the pricking pain began to spread tightly compacting my skull as it did so. I felt my knees give out from underneath me bringing me down to the floor of my bedroom.

I gasped out, sweat coated my skin as I felt heat flashes paint my body. My eyes flew open as hundreds of pictures flashed through my inflamed sight. I glazed around at them, they were all of my beautiful Sakura. Her smile, her face, her tasty body. I watched as my hands trailed over her bare stomach, I watched in confusion as I kissed her plump lips.

I blinked as my brows furrowed together; the memories I recalled began to flicker and morph to my horror as Sakura pixelate into someone I didn't know.

Sakura's bright emerald orbs diminished into brown eyes; her hair washed out into a dulled green color. What was this? Was this another jutsu?

I blinked looking around not understanding. The time, memories and all the dates I thought I spent with Sakura were now all changing into moments with...Hanare...I leapt up, rushing to the bathroom quickly bending over the toilet as vomit came rushing to the surface.

I gasped for air as I coughed, I blinked my burning eyes shut leaning against the wall all the energy drained from my body leaving me feeling like an empty shell. Besides the pain that was slowly beginning to reduce inside my skull, I couldn't feel a thing.

Gripping the side of my head, I could scene something was deeply wrong. It was like flashing sirens were exploding inside my head, screaming my name ever so desperately. I tipped my head back against the wall feeling my body rest.

What is happening to me?