Chapter Text
This was supposed to be a C-rank mission.
Blood drips onto the ground, a soft sound in the sudden post-battle quiet. Kakashi can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears. It’s unnerving; the blood, the ringing. His hearing isn’t working right. His blood is dripping onto the ground.
This was supposed to be a C-rank mission. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt.
He presses his hands against his leg, his palms becoming warm and slippery with blood. His heartbeat throbs underneath his torn skin. The wound is large and deep, but Kakashi is too numb to feel the pain just yet, too filled with adrenaline.
He ducks his head, coughs. The air is thick with smoke, heavy with the smell of blood and death and burned grass. He knows that Sakura is standing on the other side of the glade, but he can only barely see the red of her dress through the smoke.
At Sakura’s feet lie three dead bodies, enemies that she took down. Behind her lie two more slack figures – her teammates. Both Naruto and Sasuke were knocked unconscious somewhere during the fight. Kakashi had been too busy taking out their enemies at that moment; taking the time to worry about his students would’ve probably cost him his life. If it weren’t for Sakura’s protection, both Naruto and Sasuke would’ve been killed. Half of Team Seven could’ve been wiped out in the course of a single battle.
It pisses Kakashi off, it really does. This was supposed to be a C-rank mission. This was supposed to be a positive experience for Team Seven. Kakashi’s students had been nervous about leaving the village after their disastrous encounter with Zabuza a couple of weeks prior; this mission was supposed to offer them an easy victory and help build their confidence.
So they’d been sent out to help at a harbor in the South of the Land of Fire – essentially, it was a glorified D-rank mission that was only ranked C because the team needed to leave the village for it. Simple and safe. They’d taken the mission, they’d finished the mission, and they’d gone on their way back home…
And then Team Seven got attacked by a dozen of bandits that were B-rank or higher, among which an S-rank missing-nin.
Kakashi grits his teeth and tightens his grip on his upper leg, struggling to make the bleeding stop. They can’t stay here; that missing-nin managed to use an explosive tag before Kakashi killed him. A single explosive tag can’t do much damage as it’s fueled by nothing but chakra, but it’s not the damage that Kakashi is worried about – it’s the noise. The tag exploded right next to Kakashi’s head, so he got to personally experience how loud it was. He doesn’t want to think about how far the sound must’ve carried, or what kind of trouble it will attract. He has to get away from here, has to get his team to safety.
He straightens up, ignoring how the blood loss makes dark spots appear in his vision. His steps are halting and uneven, but he somehow manages to get across the glade, feet stumbling over bodies and slipping in blood-soaked mud.
Sakura raises her kunai when she sees him approach, her chakra signature agitated. In a way, that’s a good thing; if Kakashi had actually been an enemy, her startled instincts would’ve likely saved her life.
Still, it’s not very comfortable to have a terrified twelve-year-old point a sharp object at you. Kakashi raises one hand in a placating gesture, keeping the other hand pressed firmly against his leg. “Sakura,” he says. “It’s all right.” He can’t hear his own voice, but he knows it doesn’t sound as reassuring as he meant for it to sound. He wants to use that chipper child-friendly tone that he’d been perfecting, but it feels wrong in a situation as serious as this. Still, he makes an attempt to sound like a teacher instead of a threat when he repeats: “It’s all right. It’s just me.”
Sakura lowers her weapon, but instead of calming down like Kakashi hoped, her chakra signature becomes possibly even more disturbed. “Kakashi-sensei,” she whispers; Kakashi can only tell what she’s saying because his Sharingan can read lips. “Kakashi-sensei, is- is that your blood?”
Right. Kakashi lowers the hand that he’d reached out in an attempt to be reassuring – though he now realizes that his hand is covered in blood and likely wasn’t at all reassuring to look at – and presses it against his wound again. “It’s a cut from a sword,” he replies, because he knows that lying about it would only make matters worse. “Deep, but not dangerous. It’s nothing that will kill me.”
Sakura nods slowly, but her eyebrows are still pinched together, anxious. Knowing Sakura, she’s probably bursting with questions, but there’s no time to answer them right now.
Kakashi shakes his head, cutting her off before she even has the chance to say anything. “Worry about it later,” he says. “We have to go. That explosion from just now is bound to draw the attention of everyone in the vicinity.”
Sakura flinches at his tone, but she nods again. “I tried to wake Sasuke and Naruto up,” she says, “but they’re… not waking up. Naruto was under a genjutsu, I think, so I tried to break his genjutsu – but it- it didn’t work.”
Kakashi crouches down next to Naruto’s and Sasuke’s bodies, awkwardly stretching out his wounded leg in front of him. It seems that Sakura was successful in breaking Naruto’s genjutsu; his chakra pattern isn’t disrupted like it would be if he were under genjutsu. Still, both his and Sasuke’s chakra signatures are faint and weak. Sasuke fought with all he had – he collapsed from chakra exhaustion somewhere in the middle of the battle. And Naruto was put under genjutsu, which is a very taxing experience, even for someone as energetic as Naruto. He, too, is probably passed out from exhaustion.
They’ll have to be carried, Kakashi realizes, and he knows immediately that that’s an impossible task. He can barely keep his own body upright, let alone carry someone on top of that. And Sakura may be strong enough to carry one of her teammates, but she’s too small to carry both, and it would seriously slow her down.
That leaves them with one good option. Kakashi weaves a couple of signs with his blood-covered hands and presses the palm of one hand against the ground. He has to let go of his wound in order to sign; for a moment, blood spills freely from the cut again, and it brings with it a wave of lightheadedness. Kakashi briefly squeezes his eyes shut, trying to avoid passing out. When he opens his eyes again, Pakkun and Bull are standing in front of him, summoned by his seal.
Pakkun looks around, the movements of his head quick and alarmed. He asks Kakashi something, but dogs’ lips are much more difficult to read than humans’. Kakashi can vaguely make out “where are we” and “doesn’t look like a C-rank”.
“It’s a long story,” Kakashi replies tiredly. “There’s no time to explain. Two of my students are injured, and I’m hurt as well, and it’s not safe to stay here.” He turns to his other ninken; “Bull, could you carry Sasuke? Sakura, you’ll have to carry Naruto.” Kakashi knows that Sakura doesn’t like Naruto much, but Naruto is lighter than Sasuke and Kakashi wants to avoid slowing Sakura down. Personal preferences – crushes – have no priority here.
Sakura visibly pales, but she puts her kunai away and stoops down to hoist Naruto onto her back regardless. Kakashi notices that she’s moving stiffly, and that she barely moves her right arm, but he brushes it off. If Sakura were injured, she would’ve said something already; she’s smart enough for that. The fighting probably just tired her out.
“Pakkun, you’re going to have to lead the way,” Kakashi says. “An explosive tag went off right next to my head – it might be a while before my hearing comes back. If you hear any more trouble coming, you’ll have to tell me.” It sucks to need to rely on Pakkun’s hearing instead of his own, but it’s what he has to do to survive. Admitting that he can’t hear anything is better than allowing someone to sneak up on them.
Pakkun nods his head. “Sure thing,” he replies, or that’s Kakashi’s best guess at what he’s saying.
Sasuke is securely lying across Bull’s back by now – as the strongest of the pack, Bull has a lot of experience carrying people – so they’re finally ready to leave. Kakashi pushes himself to his feet. The fabric of his pants scrapes unpleasantly against his wound; he barely manages to stifle a wince. He has to channel some chakra to the muscles of his leg just to keep himself from falling over.
Kakashi ignores the worried looks that Sakura and his ninken are sending him. “Let’s go,” he says. “We have to get as far away from here as possible, before--”
And before he can finish his sentence, he’s roughly cut off by a shuriken flying at his face. He ducks away with a grunt that’s equal parts startled and pained.
Sakura pulls out a kunai, but that won’t help them much. They can’t fight; they don’t have enough energy left to meet the owner of that shuriken, let alone to make it out alive afterwards.
There’s only one thing they can do:
“Run!”