Chapter Twelve: Research
Sakura casually made her way into the hospital, cringing when she noticed the glances the nurses working at the front desk exchanged upon seeing her enter. She forced herself to smile and wave a greeting. Silently she sighed as she figured word must have gotten around that she had not only gone to an event with Jiraiya but that she had worn a replica of one of the legendary pervert’s character’s clothing. Upon finally making it to and entering her office, garnering stares the entire way there, she found to her immense relief that her assumption had been incorrect.
Sitting on her desk was another gift from her ‘secret admirer.’ Stepping closer she saw that the latest ‘token of affection’ was a rather large tin of loose tea along with a package of the store bought butter cookies she had complimented her former sensei on the previous evening. On closer examination Sakura found that the tea was a special blend for the relief of stress and encouragement of relaxation, simply labeled ‘calm.’ A note had also been slipped under the corner of the tin:
‘Thought you seemed a little tense lately… A nice soothing cup of tea might do you a world of good…’
Angrily she crumpled the little scrap of paper into a little ball at the nerve of the man to send her soothing tea subsequent to teasing her with his earlier gift and suggestive note. After a moment of silent fuming she paused, thought about what she was doing, and allowed her fingers to relax, dropping the crumpled shred of paper back onto her desk. It was an apology of sorts – indirect, just like he was most of the time. Sakura sighed knowing that he had meant well, though she would still like to smack him around a little the next time she saw him.
As she sat down at her desk to start her paperwork she ignored the tiny part of her brain questioning why she could so easily allowed herself to forgive Kakashi. She knew that if it had been almost anyone else, even Naruto or Sasuke, she would not forgive the offender quite so easily or without a heavier bribe price. Hastily she shoved the traitorous thoughts from her mind to settle herself down for what was going to be one long shift.
~*~*~*~
Kakashi watched silently as she exited her apartment building: on to the hospital for her afternoon shift he guessed. Once she had completely disappeared from sight he sauntered casually into the building to look for a certain bespectacled land lord. Sakura’s friends had said that the timid man had feelings for the pink haired medic and had more than hinted that they suspected that she may harbor feelings in return. Opening the main door the elite jonin felt that it was about time he did something about it.
Kakashi had spent a long couple hours anxiously seeking a peace of mind he felt he didn’t deserve after his all-too-clear and telling reaction to his female former student. After hours of contemplation he had come to a decision: he would gradually cease his close contact with the kunoichi and see what he could do to encourage her landlord, Hideki. That was, of course, if the man passed his muster as worthy enough to be with Sakura. Kakashi had in the past thought that Naruto and Sasuke may have gone a little overboard in their ‘protection’ of her, but somehow he was coming to better understand their stance on the matter.
Desperately the older man hoped that if he could get Sakura set up with a suitable man his inappropriate thoughts would cease and his improper feelings could be safely locked away once again knowing that she was happy with someone else. He found it extremely disconcerting that his objections to his growing attraction to the young pink haired medic seemed to be steadily crumbling away and nothing he had tried had done him any good. The deeper he tried to bury his feelings for her the more difficult of a time he had keeping them from resurfacing and the more convinced he became that he needed to do something serious about it, fast.
~*~*~*~
Angrily, Sakura made her way to the edge of one of the less reputable areas of the village. She had been fuming all day. Though her anger had been split between two men until the moment she had entered her office, the medic had then found the thoughtful peace offering and one lucky man was off the hook while her rage was now redirected entirely at one. After all, she rationalized, it wasn’t Kakashi’s fault that she had shown up at his apartment dressed as a character from one of his beloved dirty books. So logic followed she couldn’t be too angry with him for his reaction, especially since he had given her the answer she had asked for, just not in the way she would have anticipated.
For her own sanity she chose to ignore his indecent suggestion hastily scribbled on the page marker, deciding that it was more to rile her up than anything else. There was just no way he could have been serious about it. A small part of her though, to her inner disgust, wanted to call him on his bluff.
Hastily she shoved the thoughts aside – chalking them up to the events and conversations that had taken place during her recent hot spring holiday. Sakura had been having issues keeping her thoughts strictly professional in regard to the, she hated to admit it, attractive Copy Ninja since her girlfriends had discovered for themselves how striking he could be under all of the layers he habitually wore.
Unbidden her mind flickered back to a conversation she really wished she hadn’t been privy to, mostly because more than once she had found herself wondering the same thing…
“So Sakura, how often does that former sensei of yours read those dirty orange books?” Ino had asked ever so innocently as they were once again lounging in the private hot spring.
“Eh? Oh, um well I don’t know. Whenever he has a free moment I suppose… Why?”
Her former rival had eyed the two other women speculatively. They shrugged.
“Well I got to wondering… You know how he is known as the Copy Ninja right?”
Silently Sakura had groaned, afraid she knew where Ino might be going with her line of questioning. Not trusting her voice she nodded allowing her eyes to widen in apparent shock, the flush coming to her face naturally.
“I wonder if the title only applies to jutsu…”
The pink haired medic had almost passed out, her friend had gone there, the absolute last place she had ever wanted to hear anyone go in regard to the silver haired jonin. Somehow she had always figured he would be more than adept in that particular area, but it was not something she really wanted to spend any sort of time pondering.
Abruptly Sakura found herself at the somewhat secluded apartment building where the legendary pervert lived. Shaking the inappropriate thoughts and embarrassing memories of Kakashi from her mind she squared her shoulders and marched in – knowing from going to fetch Naruto too many times exactly where Jiraiya’s apartment was located. Upon reaching the door she reined in her temper, knowing it would do her no favors to make Jiraiya shaped holes or large craters in his apartment.
The white haired man answered his door, showing no surprise at seeing her, and let her into his cramped living room. “Sakura, my dear, it’s so nice to see you this fine evening. I do hope you had a nice time last night.” He glanced closely at her face, looking for any hints of an eminent flare of temper that could send him flying or create costly property damage. “I suppose you’re here for your part of the deal then?”
Sakura’s eyes narrowed. “You owe me old man,” her voice dangerously soft belying her anger.
Jiraiya raised his hands in front of him in defense. “I don’t know what you mean.” Hurriedly the old man rummaged around on the overcrowded shelves before pulling something down, wrapping it in brown paper, and offering it to the clearly irate medic with his best sheepish grin.
She took the package and glared at him. “Don’t think I’m going to let you off so lightly! I can’t believe you, you sick dirty old man!” Sakura smacked him with the package she had received, emphasizing each angry word. “What the hell were you thinking, dressing me up as one of your characters?!” The younger woman flushed in embarrassment rather than anger. “Never mind allowing me to go treat Kakashi, your biggest fan, dressed like that!!”
“Sheesh Sakura. I’m sorry. I’ve always thought that dress would look stunning on you. I simply couldn’t resist trying it out… And, how was I to know who you were going to treat. It could have been any number of shinobi…” Jiraiya trailed off noting her angry expression was not wavering in the least and cursed inwardly. The situation would clearly need some fancy footwork on his part to avoid any further repercussions for his wardrobe choice for the lovely kunoichi. Still, he had to admit to himself that he was rather satisfied at how he had managed to settle an unofficial debt to his most devout fan – but he would never let her know about it.
~*~*~*~
Sakura knew he was in the village; she had healed him not two days prior, smacked him around a little for his Icha Icha inspired suggestion then had to heal him again. Then, she had lunch with him as though nothing had changed between the two of them (because she had to admit that nothing actually had) the day before and according to the mission logs he was still unassigned. It was only a matter of finding him.
She sighed. It probably wasn’t going to be easy, but if she approached him right, he might help her. Wearily Sakura rolled up the scroll she was studying and placed it in her hip pouch. The assignment had started out innocently enough but if she had actually taken a few minutes to think about it she may have realized that she would be required to obtain the aid of her former sensei before she could advance to the third phase of her recently assigned research. Sakura had hit a complete block since Tsunade had refused her requests to move on to the portion of the project that had originally sparked her interest. Unfortunately the hokage felt that she had some sort of special qualifications which would allow her to attain a more thorough understanding of her chosen area before moving on to the theoretical. In other words, she would not allow the pink haired medic to wiggle out of pinning her former sensei down and obtaining his help.
Resigning herself to the fact that the longer she put it off the longer it would actually take in the end Sakura decided that she might as well stop dragging her feet and go ask the sure to be reticent man. Her first stop would be back to headquarters to study the mission logs in more depth to see who else happened to be in the village. Surprisingly enough a great deal of the factors that ruled his daily patterns were related to who happened to be in the village and who happened to be out on missions.
After checking the mission logs the pink haired medic had a fair idea where he may be, though she wouldn’t go to him now, she didn’t want to disturb him. He would be at the memorial for the better part of the afternoon. She tried to avoid disturbing him there as he went for meditation and she figured it was bad enough that she bothered him in his own home. Sakura wouldn’t pester him while he was at the memorial unless he was in dire need of medical assistance or the village was under siege. She would wait until evening and catch him on his way back to his apartment.
Several hours later Sakura found herself silently waiting in the park across from his apartment building scanning the street for the ever familiar messy bush of silver hair. Her calculations were right and she didn’t have long to wait. She caught sight of him sauntering along with the ever present orange book in one hand the other stuffed casually in his pants pocket. The pink haired kunoichi waited until he was almost at the door before she pounced.
“Kakashi!” she called slipping in-between him and his destination.
Not particularly startled, as he had sensed her before she had even been able to see him, he lowered his book to smile at his former student. “Good evening Sakura.”
Kakashi waited for a moment, wondering if she would tell him why she had decided to seek him out, though he was glad to see that things seemed to be relatively normal between the two of them. After a brief but violent outburst Sakura seemed to have put his Icha Icha inspired gift and suggestion behind her allowing things to go back to normal. Granted, the older shinobi had not yet had a chance to try and implement his plan to get her interested in a suitable man as each time he had a free moment to try and seek out her landlord the man seemed to be missing in action. Somewhere in the back of his mind Kakashi was beginning to get just a little suspicious, though of what he couldn’t quite say. A small part of him wondered if he was deliberately sabotaging himself when he went looking for Hideki – after all few people wanted to hear that the Copy Ninja was looking for them for an unknown reason especially with Naruto and Sasuke’s reputations for beating any man foolish enough to express interest in Sakura. It wouldn’t take a panicked civilian much to convince himself that even though Kakashi was not known for that sort of behavior, he was still more than capable of pounding any man interested in his former female student into the ground if he should choose to do so.
Because Kakashi hadn’t been able to set the first part of his plan into motion he had rationalized not trying to distance himself from her as not worth the effort. At least it wouldn’t be worth his effort until the rest of his plan was in motion. Distancing himself from her without having a handy replacement ready to distract her from the fact that he was distancing himself from her seemed like a sure way to fail – at least he assured himself that it was. A tiny component of his mind questioned his logic for such a decision but was hastily overruled by the greater majority of the rest of his brain.
“Um,” Sakura flushed a little and looked down for a moment before looking up with her most winning smile. Things had been a little weird between them for a couple weeks, but they had more or less gone back to how they had been after she meted out her physical punishment to both men, and she had to admit that she was more than relieved.
Subconsciously he drew back a little, knowing instinctively that she was about to ask him for something that she knew would be difficult convincing him he wanted to give her.
“Kakashi, I have a favor to ask…” she paused again, the faint flush returning to her cheeks. “Um, it’s kind of personal, but you’re really the only one I can ask to help me and I’m kind of stuck… I can’t progress any further in my work...”
“Sakura, out with it. Whatever it is I’m sure I’ll be more than happy to help you if I can.” Kakashi smiled reassuringly at her, wondering what on earth she could possibly need from him and if it would interfere with his so far failure-of-a-plan. Off the top of his head he couldn’t think of anything she could ask of him that he would be reluctant to either do for her or give to her – aside from removing his mask and showing her his face of course, but then she had stopped asking years ago and was not likely to be asking him now.
The younger medic pulled a scroll from her hip pouch and fiddled with it before continuing. “Well, you see… I’ve been assigned a new area of research at the hospital and the scrolls are well… less than easy to comprehend.” Her cheeks colored angrily as she spoke. “The idiot who wrote them had a very high opinion of himself in his own area of expertise – so much so that he decided to leave incomplete notes without diagrams so that no one would ever surpass his knowledge on the subject…”
The older shinobi wrinkled his brow in slight puzzlement. “Sakura, you’ve studied for years to become a medic and healed me dozens of times. I can’t imagine what I could possibly do to help you with your new assignment….”
“Yeah, um” she scratched her head apologetically. “I know you’ve resisted this in the past, which is probably why they’ve decided to assign this to me…” she grimaced not particularly liking the fact that she was being used, even if it was for a good cause.
His eye narrowed; he was beginning to suspect what had been asked of his former student and he didn’t particularly like it.
Sakura noted his clear displeasure and fought to keep from shrinking back at his expression. “I’m sorry Kakashi, I should have realized what they had in mind and refused before it could progress this far. It started out simple enough, transplants… An interesting area in and of itself, quite a well sought after area of study too. I really should have known when they asked me to set aside some of my time to look into kekkei genkai as well. Only a matter of time before they asked me to combine them…” The medic sighed as she trailed off, upset that she had been put into the position of using her friendship with the infamous Copy Ninja to collect the information he had steadfastly refused all medics daring enough to ask since he had acquired the rather gruesome memento mori from one of his former teammates. Though, if she had actually stopped to think about the long term goals for her research she would have realized that she wouldn’t be able to progress until she had taken an in-depth look at the best available example of a transplanted kekkei genkai.
After a moment of silence Sakura was able to look up at her former sensei, her friend, a decision made. “Forget about it. They shouldn’t have asked and I shouldn’t have been stupid enough to try and follow through. It’s not right and not fair for me to ask this of you. I’ll just try harder to find a way around it so I can continue on with my research without involving you.”
Kakashi had been fighting an inner battle with himself since she had first asked for a favor, beginning to suspect it might have something to do with what he had promised Tsunade. He had promised her he would help Sakura if and when she asked, but he had never really suspected the Hokage would set him up quite like this. He had been about to agree to help her when his former student had abruptly taken her request back, deciding to refuse the part of the assignment that involved him or find another way of completing it. Seemingly the problem had taken care of itself, unfortunately his conscience seemed to think otherwise and he wasn’t quite sure if he could ignore it for any length of time.
A smaller part of him, one he promptly shoved into a dark corner of his mind, suggested it was a great opportunity to spend some time with the kunoichi – he hadn’t been around the village much in the recent past and, despite all inner admonitions, Kakashi missed seeing and spending time with her. Besides, he further rationalized, he still hadn’t been able to corner her landlord so there was really no point in pushing her away quite yet…
The medic turned to walk away only to find herself unable to move, confused she turned to face the man holding her in place with a hand on her shoulder. “Kakashi?”
“Sakura… it’s fine. I’ll do what I can to help you with your research.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “But you’ve always…”
The silver haired man sighed to himself, not wanting her to know how much he didn’t particularly care for the situation. “I guess it’s about time I let someone take an in-depth look at what having and using the Sharingan has done to me.”
She stared at him open mouthed and he chuckled.
“And, I suppose that if someone has to do it, I’d much rather that person be you.”
Sakura flushed and he kicked himself as he realized he was just making it more difficult for when he did finally manage to pull himself away.
~*~*~*~
The silver haired man casually sauntered into the pub with thoughts of spending a relatively quiet evening, considering his generally noisy green clad drinking buddy was currently away on a mission, at the pub slowly drowning the inappropriate thoughts that continued despite all his efforts to the contrary to plague him in sake. After scanning the crowd to find that he was actually the first to arrive for the evening he made his way to the bar to get his usual bottle of sake.
Once he had settled himself in his usual dark corner booth he idly scanned the pub again, looking for something to distract him until the rest of his usual drinking buddies appeared. Kakashi wasn’t quite up to cracking Icha Icha Tactics just then as it had been a particularly rough day with Sakura spending too much time at the forefront of his mind already, opening the dirty orange book did not seem to be a good idea. As his eye made a second sweep of the patrons he noted two familiar shinobi enter. Quietly he sighed to himself as he watched them scan the pub with their eyes settling on him. They had obviously been looking for him in particular, not usually a good thing.
Kakashi watched as the two had a brief conversation ending with the dark haired man heading to the bar and his blonde haired friend making his way to the corner booth in the back.
“Kakashi!” he greeted the generally silent shinobi. “We’ve been looking all over for you! I can’t believe we found you after we had given up looking.” He shot the older man an unreadable look. “I don’t know how Sakura does it! She can find you whenever she wants!”
“Idiot!” the dark haired man joined them bearing two bottles of sake along with the accompanying cups. “That’s because she’s been the one to spend the most time with him lately. Of course she would be able to find him.”
The two younger shinobi seated themselves at the booth without having been invited to do so.
“I hear you were looking for me?” Kakashi tried, hoping they weren’t going to broach the one subject he didn’t want to discuss, their fourth former teammate.
“Yeah! We’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now…” Naruto shot a furtive glance around the pub before lowering his voice to continue. “We’ve been hearing an awful lot about some loser secret admirer Sakura seems to have acquired while we were away…”
The Uchiha rolled his eyes at his friend’s blunt and direct line of questioning; rarely did that sort of thing work with the Copy Ninja.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking of me here?”
“Well Sakura won’t budge on it, but we,” he nudged his friend, “think she knows more than she is saying.”
“Okay…So what do you want from me then?”
“Well we thought that you might know something about it.” Sasuke cut in before his friend could say something less tactful.
“Ah, I see. And, why would you think I would know something about this then?”
“You have been spending more time with her than anyone else lately, and she always did favor you as a good advisor…” Sasuke trailed off, hoping the older jonin would take the bait and spill some information to his comrades, though he wasn’t expecting Kakashi to do so. No, the man wouldn’t fall for such an easy tactic, even among friends, and probably enjoyed playing with them too much anyhow when he had the power of information.
“C’mon Kakashi, it’s for her own good.” The dark haired man glared at his former sensei feeling in no mood to play some stupid game with the older shinobi before continuing to explain his point of view on the matter. “Anyone too cowardly to face us doesn’t deserve to be with her end of story.” The irritated Uchiha lost his remaining patience with his former teacher, feeling as though the older man was just toying with him and his blonde friend.
Kakashi laughed at his former student’s irritation and absently wondered how quickly the annoyance would be wiped from the Uchiha’s face if he were to tell them that he was Sakura’s ‘secret admirer’ and what sort of expression it would be replaced with. Granted, the whole thing was just a game between himself and Sakura, but Sasuke didn’t know that.
Then again, Sasuke had been protesting a little too much lately about Sakura’s string of ill fated relationships. Kakashi was fairly certain that the dark haired man harbored no romantic feelings for Sakura, but it was possible that he was jealous of other men getting too close to someone he considered as his in that she had been so clearly head over heels for him for such a long time that it had never particularly occurred to him that he would eventually have to share her with other men. Sharing was not something that came naturally to the Uchiha and Kakashi didn’t relish being in Sakura’s position when she finally had to point it out to him.
Inwardly resolving not to let them in on the secret quite yet he smiled at the two aggravated younger men. “Sorry, Sakura has told me nothing about it. Even if she had chosen to confide in me the true identity of her ‘secret admirer’ I rather doubt she would like for me to tell you two, especially after she intentionally didn’t share anything with either of you in the first place.” It wasn’t quite a lie, since Sakura hadn’t told him anything about her ‘secret admirer,’ granted, that was mostly because he was said admirer, but that was neither here nor there. The bottom line was that technically it wasn’t a lie since it was absolutely true, jut not quite the whole truth...
“Kakashi! That’s not fair!!” Naruto whined, forgetting for a moment that the silver haired jonin had admitted that he didn’t know anything about the matter.
“Life’s not fair Naruto, get used to it.” The older man calmly replied, pulling out his ever handy orange novel as a clear sign to the two younger men that the conversation had ended and he was done talking about their former female teammate.
~*~*~*~
Sakura knocked almost hesitantly, feeling unsure of her decision to go through with studying Kakashi’s Sharingan, especially since despite his protests to the contrary she knew he really didn’t like it. She still couldn’t imagine why he would agree in the first place if he was so uncomfortable with the idea of her studying his second hand kekkei genkai and just what effects it had had on him after so many years of use and overuse.
As she was lost in thought the door opened and Kakashi smiled as he let her in.
“Hello Sakura, right on time as usual.”
The pink haired medic smiled back and nodded her hello, feeling more or less as awkward as she had the first time she had pushed her way into his apartment to heal him. Almost shyly she ducked under his arm to enter as he seemed almost reluctant to let go of or move away from the door. Glancing back at him uncertainly Sakura cautiously made her way to his kitchen as was her usual procedure. Upon arriving she found that he had made tea and already set up his table for her.
He followed her back in and served her a cup of the warm brew before making himself comfortable on the kitchen table as if it was one of her usual checkups. Over the years many medics had expressed interest for one reason or another in his Sharingan and apparently she was no different, though her real objectives were far from clear to him since she had not elaborated on just what aspect of his Sharingan she wanted to study and it was obviously only a part of what she was actually researching. Thoughts of asking her about it faded as he realized that since she hadn’t told him while asking for his help – when she really could have used something to help back up her request for his aid – it was probably classified, which of course only served to pique his interest even more.
An hour or so later, after her preliminary observations had been made, she looked at him from out of the corner of her eye to see that his natural eye had slid shut – probably because what she had been doing to his Sharingan had relaxed the rest of him and might have even made him a little sleepy. A small smile played across her lips as an idea occurred to her, her uneasiness having long ago been dispelled as she went through the familiar motions of a usual exam before starting to put his Sharingan through its paces.
As gently as she could Sakura slid her fingers lightly around his eye socket allowing a little chakra to leak directly into the Sharingan itself. Almost lazily the tomoe began to spin, attracted to the chakra she was dragging around in a slow circle. She stopped and then tried again with the same result. Just as she was about to make a third attempt going in the opposite direction his natural eye opened and focused on her.
“Sakura, it’s not a toy you know. It is my eye and I can see that glint of mischief in your eye.”
She flushed and withdrew from him, giggling a little. “I know, but yours is so much more fun to play with than Sasuke’s… Not that he really lets me play with his very often…” She paused in thought for a moment. “Yours is more responsive I think.”
He nearly choked as she spoke, his corrupted mind easily able to find a second meaning to what she was saying.
She continued on without noticing his discomfort. “Must be your superior self control – Sasuke hasn’t quite reached your level in that area yet.” Sakura studied his taken aback expression for a moment. “I wonder if it is the fact that you’re older and just plain more experienced or if it is because yours is not natural so you have to work harder to control it?”
His surprise at her first few statements faded and he was able to find his tongue. “Sasuke let you study his Sharingan?”
She waved her hand negligently. “Of course. If I wanted to take a look at yours I would have to have something to compare it to… And, Sasuke is really the only other available option.” She laughed. “I’ll admit that it took quite a lot of convincing. I think he is more interested in knowing how your Sharingan compares to his…”
She fell silent as she picked up her notebook and started writing notes again. Kakashi watched her intently wondering if she would have any sort of verdict for him. As much as he had resisted the idea of having someone take a look at his transplant he had always been interested in knowing for himself more about just what it had done to him and as a consequence he couldn’t help but be eager to hear what she had to say. The more she wrote the more curious he became – reading the movements of her pencil told him nothing as she seemed to be writing in some sort of medical short hand of which he could decipher nothing. After a few moments a small frown appeared on her face as Sakura continued to write, every once in a while consulting another notebook and a pair of ancient looking scrolls.
She felt his eyes on her and continued to write with the small frown gracing her features. From what she could tell his Sharingan was remarkably sound and his body had done its best to adapt to the demanding alien eye. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of deterioration of his own ocular system as a consequence. As she finished writing she glanced up to catch him staring at her and flushed a little.
“I’d like to try something if you don’t mind?” Sakura smiled at him hoping he would acquiesce to her request.
He nodded. “Go ahead. I trust you.”
Almost eagerly the medic placed one of her hands carefully to his left temple. She closed her eyes and concentrated. As gently as she could she eased a thin tendril of chakra into the muscles surrounding his Sharingan to ease the tense pain and stiffness he had learned to live with and had not really noticed until she had taken it away. Once she had soothed the area around his eye she gently nudged a couple ligaments, managing to untwist a partially tangled one that was probably a result of the original transplant procedure.
Unable to help himself he let out an enormous sigh of relief, startling the concentrating medic nin. Once she was able to regain her concentration she continued, easing the havoc the alien eye had wreaked on the area immediately surrounding his eye socket. Sakura felt slightly gratified to find her suspicions had been correct. The years of hard use had not been kind to his eye, but some of it could be reversible with regular treatments and more attention to the condition of his eye.
“Hmm…” she sat in thought apparent contemplation, staring at his eye in thought. After a few moments Sakura shook herself visibly and started writing again. When she finished she looked up at him again.
“So what’s the verdict?” Kakashi asked careful to keep his intense interest from his voice.
She bit her lip a little before answering. “Well honestly better than I had dreaded, but not as good as I would really have liked to have hoped.”
He raised an eyebrow, but refrained from speaking.
The medic shook her head ruefully. “Though, I’ll need to check in on it a couple more times to see what it looks like after you’ve used it and of course after you’ve overused it… I would also like to see how the strengthening of your ocular system holds up under the strain you put on it.” She tilted her head a little speculatively. “I know you must know that you are slowly going blind in that eye, though by untwisting a few of the ligaments has probably made a noticeable improvement and eased some of the tenseness you must have been feeling for years now... You will continue to lose your sight unless treated on a fairly regular basis. I might be able to slow it down, but I’m afraid nothing will truly be able to stop it.” She sighed, “I really was hoping for better news for you…”
Sensing her sadness, Kakashi decided to do something to cheer her up a little. He pushed himself off of the table and offered her his hand.
Feeling puzzled she looked up at him questioningly.
“I’m hungry, let’s go get some dinner.”
“But…but didn’t you hear what I just told you?” Sakura asked still feeling confused.
He smiled. “Yup, now come on I’m starving.”
She continued to look at him incredulously.
The silver haired man sighed. “It’s no use worrying about something that can’t be changed. I think I’ve probably known most of that on some level for years now anyway. Hearing it from an official source doesn’t change the fact that there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it.” He chuckled. “And, there’s probably no way you’re going to let me get away with not doing anything that can be done to help with the situation.”
Sakura smiled as she understood and took his arm, wondering why Kakashi seemed to be in such a chivalrous mood and if it would extend to paying for their dinner though she was clearly the one who owed him.
