Book One- Chiisai is a simple librarian who spends her days trying to move on from her fickle past and its haunting side effects. Her life, however, quickly spirals after she's attacked in an alley. She's saved by the elite ninja known as Hatake Kak...
There were three memories that stood out to Kakashi.
First- Lord Hiruzen stepping inside an interrogation room, with a teenage Chiisai cuffed to a wooden chair. Her parents were dead, and she had tried and failed at jumping off the hospital roof. On the table was a stack of familiar journals. Someone stood in the shadows, but Kakashi couldn't make it out.
Second- a flurry of images of Chiisai stepping into dreams, looking into memories, and reporting to Lord Hiruzen in his own dreams. She stepped into them as if she were walking through portals. She changed the dreams' landscapes, snuck through traps hidden in the mind, and sought enemy memories. It was remarkably stealthy, and she acted like a trained kunoichi with years of experience.
And again- there was the haze of a figure beside her in the dream world.
Though he could tell that the memories had been tampered with- almost a year's worth were missing, and he caught the familiar signature of a rogue ninja, one that he had recently encountered.
Itachi Uchiha. If this mysterious person was him, it meant he knew about her, and was placed with her by Lord Third himself. They worked perfectly in sync in the dream world, stepping into minds and gathering information with ease. The way the two talked, the way Chiisai reacted to the hazy person's gestures- she looked happy, at ease, and Kakashi didn't know what to make of it.
Could Chiisai be some type of informant for him?
And the last memory- a complex seal Chiisai herself had no memory of receiving, except the aftermath of waking up in a dark room with the Third smoking a pipe. She no longer could use her powers, let alone dream, Lord Hiruzen explained. And Chiisai, who thought she'd finally be free, felt utterly alone, as if a piece of her had died. The Third sat with her for over an hour as she cried, and he got the sense that something else was missing.
And when Kakashi wanted to know more, and he pushed further, well, Chiisai did push back. No, no, it wasn't her chakra, but Itachi's. His signature of chakra rammed against his senses. And suddenly, he was no longer seeing Chiisai's memories, but his own.
Finding Naruto unconscious in the Valley of the End. Sasuke was gone, and Naruto struggled for breath. It was raining, and the weight in his chest had him struggling to keep standing.
Kakashi's knees buckled and he braced his hands on the bed.
Now he was on the roof of the hospital on a clear sunny day. White hospital gowns hung on straight lines and moved with the breeze. He had barely stopped Sasuke and Naruto from killing each other and Sakura. A flash of a rasengan, the shrill sound of chidori, and Sakura running to both receiving ends. He should have stopped the two then and there and talked some sense into them. He had failed them both as their teacher that day, and the disbandment of the team only proved it.
Kakashi's breath came out in gasps, and he needed to get out of her mind, he knew, but she pushed deeper into his thoughts, twisting like a snake, and suddenly, he was staring into the crimson eyes of Itachi.
Kakashi was back in the nightmare realm, strapped to a wooden cross. Swords stabbed and pierced his flesh, digging into his gut, and the pain had blinded him of breath and time. It had been three days of torture crushed into a matter of seconds. There was no end to the agony, of the pain of dying over and over and yet not. When would it end? His mind couldn't take it.
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The attack suddenly hesitated, and he felt her chakra intercede as if it had a mind of its own. Kakashi cut off his Sharingan and squeezed his eyes shut then. His chest rose and fell in quick movements as he lost his strength. He managed to thrust his arms out, his elbows digging into the mattress. His head dropped into the crook of her shoulder.
His fingers curled into the sheets, his knuckles whiter than the cloth. He realized suddenly the position he was in, his chest flushed with hers, his masked face pressed against the curve of her neck. She still smelled of books, but there were other scents, of mud and bile and sweat and fear. A shiver ran down her spine as his haggard breath hit her exposed skin.
If anyone had seen them, they would have thought the two to be in a lover's embrace.
"You're...kind of heavy," she wheezed. There was pain in her voice, and he could feel her small body strain against his.
Kakashi took another heavy breath and forced himself back up. His arms shook, and he stumbled back, collapsing in the chair behind him.
Kakashi took a shaggy breath. He was already starting to sweat, and he cursed himself for being so weak.
He asked, "What did you do?"
She squeezed her eyes shut and her legs twisted under the blankets. "Me? What about you? I feel like I've been hit by an ox cart!"
"You...Are you a spy?" Kakashi's voice was low, almost a growl as he narrowed his eye.
She slowly turned her head. It was clearly a difficult task, and tears spilled down her cheeks as she replied, "I'm sorry about what happened to you. What Itachi Uchiha did. I didn't mean to see that. That was..."
Her voice trailed off, and her eyes flickered to the ceiling. Another tear slid down her cheek.
"You didn't answer my question," Kakashi said, voice level.
"I'm...I don't do that anymore. I'm retired," she said, staring up at the ceiling.
Kakashi studied Chiisai, and the tears in her eyes, and his thoughts drifted back to her diary entry of his nightmare. I am sad all day, she had written.
He found himself wanting to trust her, he realized. She sounded sincere, and honest, and the look on her face-
He looked away and cleared his throat. "Perhaps I should be apologizing to you too."
She sniffed and said, "About the genjutsu you tried putting me under or...breaking into my home?"
"No," he replied, "about my nightmares." He crossed his arms and added, "It makes sense why you can't look at me. You must remember them every time you see me."
And for some reason, a piece of his insides curled at the thought of this stranger knowing so much about him.
She squeezed her eyes shut, cursed, and looked back at him. "It just...They make me sad. It's hard, caring and pretending not to know."
Kakashi paused, blinking in surprise. She had said the words so easily, without thought. He said, "You care about me?"
