Queen of Air and Darkness

xxiii. avenging the past

Kakashi stood in the center of Danzo's chamber, facing his own death. If he tried, he could still remember the feel of Sakura's dagger sliding between his ribs. It had been sharp and hot, even as the tips of his fingers cooled and his vision had flickered in and out as if his body had tried to protect his mind from what had happened.

The last thing he remembered was his head in Sakura's lap and darkness.

With Danzo dead, the room had no more power. There were no illusions here, no dark memories waiting in the shadowed corners of this place. But Kakashi could not help looking over his shoulder, waiting for the world to shift and the Sharingan's power to take them all.

It felt like only a handful of days since he had died.

No, that wasn't right.

It felt like decades. It felt like he had lived a lifetime there in the underworld; the lifetime he might have had if Obito and Rin had lived. If fate had not demanded blood. He could still remember the feeling of camaraderie, the easy life under the reign of a (still living) King Minato.

But it had been a lifetime without a glimpse of pink hair, or the flicker of mischief in Sakura's green eyes. A lifetime without the woman who now stood by his side. Who curled her hand in his, tightening her grasp as her own memories of this place washed over her.

"We should burn this place," Sakura said, her voice a quiet whisper.

All around them, members of the guard were at work. They chipped away at mortar and lifted stones, measuring the extent of Danzo's crimes and making sure that no one would stumble into this place and uncover the evil that hid within. Kakashi had made each of them swear an oath of silence before he knew what they would find. He could not afford rumors of Danzo's atrocities to sweep through the town. In the thick of siege and winter, it would be like throwing a match to kindling and letting a forest-fire rage.

"We've found bones," Kotetsu called, summoning Kakashi and Sakura to his dig site.

And so he had. He lifted a heavy piece of stone, his back straining under the weight, to reveal bits of skeleton. There was a ribcage, a femur. And there, in the corner, a skull. The bone around the eye sockets was chipped and damaged, as though someone had violently torn out the eyes that had once rested there.

Danzo had been thorough in his quest for the Sharingan's power.

Kakashi would never know how he had gotten the bodies of the members of the Uchiha clan. The massacre had occurred in their manor to the east, but somehow under all their noses Danzo had stolen their bodies and used them as fuel for his magic.

It was a grave injury. Not only to Kakashi's duty but also to his pride. It had been his duty to keep the city safe and somehow, Danzo had snuck in under his nose, creating a chamber of horrors and a web of control that reached around the king itself.

In the end, he supposed it was fair retribution that Danzo's malice had turned on him.

But Sakura had not deserved to be caught in the crossfire. And for that, Kakashi would never forgive himself.

Not that she had let it dampen her. Beside him, Sakura shone with ferocity, her teeth bared as she looked down at the bones. He could feel the fury crackling off of her, like the air before a midsummer storm.

For the length of their journey home, they had not spoken of that day, just as they had not spoken of what the other had seen in the underworld. But even without words, he knew in his very bones, that when Sakura had slid the knife between his ribs, it had not been he that she attacked.