At least until there was a slow clapping from the corner of the room.

Kakashi, as befits a Copy Ninja, quickly covered Sakura with his body and covered both of them with a duvet. Then he shifted his cold gaze to the intruder hiding in the shadows behind the door. He narrowed his eyes menacingly as he regarded the uninvited guest with his sharingan.

Sakura tightened her hands on the man's shoulders, unsure what to do. She couldn't see who it was behind the door, but she could guess.

"You think you can just make fun of me, Kakashi?" The voice sounded strikingly familiar and feminine.

The man clenched his jaw, and Sakura saw a muscle twitch on his left cheek.

"And you think you can play with us? Naruto's reckless, so he'll forgive you easily, but you need to work a little harder with me, dear Tsunade. And how's Sasuke, still happy with that mission?" he snorted, propped up on his elbows on the sides of the tiny female body of his former apprentice.

The Fifth, either intentionally ignored one of her best ninja, or completely didn't care what he said to her.

"Great show, my dear," Tsunade said, examining the flushed face of the pink-haired kunoichi. "I must admit I didn't think you would go that far." An ironic smirk twitched on the Hokage's lips as she continued, "But I see that the mission always comes first to you."

Kakashi frowned even more, and this time he looked at the young woman in question.

"What mission?" he asked, and the pink-haired sensed the darkness in his voice that emanated from him mostly when he faced enemies.

"Oh, you thought you would just get Sakura on a tray?" Tsunade asked with a devilish smile on her lips. "Didn't you wonder for a moment why she was dressed like this for an evening that she was only supposed to spend with you?"

Understanding seized Kakashi like a tsunami, filling him with a cold feeling of indifference.

"Ah, so that was your revenge for that report?" he guessed.

"Nobody! I won't allow anyone to write to me in the report, let me quote your own words, 'Kiss my ass! Team Seven is taking a two-month break...'." Her gaze was almost sparkling.

Sakura's mouth dropped open.

"You really wrote that in the report?" The young kunoichi was surprised.

Kakashi gave her a dismissive look, then focused on the Hokage.

"If it weren't for my diversion and quick rescue, you would have lost three of your best shinobi!" Kakashi growled, rising a little higher on his elbows.

"I apologized to you for that!"

"There would be no one to apologize if I failed!"

"I know!" Tsunade roared.

Kakashi sat on the bed with the duvet girded around his crotch, and Sakura pulled the rest of the material over her, which didn't cover his body.

There was a strong blush on Fifth's cheeks.

"You could've checked Mitsuga Katsuo first! Especially since you knew Orochimaru and his sharingan obsession best of all of us!" Hatake shouted, and Haruno shivered when she realized that she had never heard her ex-teacher scream and being so openly angry.

And then Kakashi gave her an ice-cold look as he got up from the bed, walked over to the closet, and pulled on his pants, a tank top with a mask, and a spare set shirt.

"Congratulations on a mission well done, Sakura. I suppose you were supposed to seduce me and make me take off my mask?" Hatake glanced over his shoulder at the kunoichi in his bed. "But you never thought about what was driving Tsunade when she gave you the order."

Haruno sighed barely audibly, looking at the Fifth, who was examining the Copy Ninja's posture.

"She didn't need to know the details," the Hokage snorted.

Kakashi laughed bitterly.

"You're right. Better let her live in ignorance. By the way... I'm leaving team seven, I'll submit my official resignation tomorrow morning," he replied before he melted into thin air.

Sakura jumped up from the bed to stop him, but she didn't make it. Instead, she wrapped the covers tighter and looked at Tsunade. The guilt could be read on the Fifth Hokage's face.

The pink-haired kunoichi frowned.

"Was it just that you wanted to take revenge on him for what he wrote in the report?" she asked to make sure, and when Tsunade nodded back, Sakura pressed her lips into a narrow line. "What was it all for? What was I supposed to achieve? What exactly was that revenge?"

Tsunade bit her fingernail and Haruno twitched. Something was definitely wrong. Why was Kakashi so upset?

"Tsunade-sama..."

The blonde clicked her tongue dissatisfied and looked at her ward with her amber eyes.

"Kakashi was furious about Team Seven's last mission. My mistake was that I didn't send any more ANBU patrols, but even they couldn't handle the intelligence mission." She sighed resignedly. "I thought you could do well. You are my best shinobi team, and Kakashi is a great strategist and a genius."

Sakura looked back to the place where her former sensei had been standing not so long ago, and then she looked back at the Hokage.

"After this mission, Kakashi came to me with a request to cancel the next missions until the three of you recover, but... I already had plans for you and I didn't agree. Kakashi got pissed and wrote what he wrote in the report," she paused for a moment, her lips pressed into a narrow line. "But I knew more about him than I dared to admit. So your mission wasn't entirely to expose Kakashi... you were supposed to hurt him... and that's why I stepped in at the last minute."

Despite the strong blushes on the cheeks, neither Tsunade nor Sakura looked away from each other.

"But why would that hurt him?" Haruno was surprised.

A mysterious smile appeared on the lips of the Fifth.

"You know so little about men..."

Sakura raised an eyebrow, clenching her fingers tighter on her blanket.

"Kakashi's in love with you," Senju finally blurted. "For some time now."

Sakura's mouth fell open in surprise. "No... it's impossible..." she whispered.

"And yet."

Green gaze met the amber one in its path.

"Are you telling me that you decided to take advantage of his affection and deliberately sent me to give him what he had wanted for so long, only to take it away from him and break him completely?" Haruno summed up, looking intensely at the Fifth.

The woman had the dignity within her to bow her head.

"I know it's mean..."

"No!" Sakura interrupted her, almost grinding her teeth with rage. "It wasn't mean. It was shameful! Even for you, Tsunade-sama. Playing with other people's feelings is unfair, I wouldn't do that even to my worst enemy..."

Tsunade sighed.

"Did I go too far?"

"Totally!"

"Eh... and now he wants to quit."

"I won't let him do that, but you'll have to apologize to him and I'll try to talk to him and explain everything to him."

~*~

"Kakashi?"

He flinched, but didn't even look up at her. Well, she probably deserved it, and since she had been making her bed, she had to sleep on it now.

He was sitting on the bench in the place, where she once kissed Naruto impersonating Sasuke, with elbows resting on his knees, legs apart and shoulders drooping. Staring down at the sidewalk.

Haruno didn't know what she should have done in such situation, and the fact that she was still wearing high heels didn't make her task any easier, though she had replaced the dress with Kakashi's trousers and his long-sleeve shirt, and despite the fact that she looked comical in a much too large jōnin uniform, she felt much better than in that nasty dress, which would probably remind her of this nasty mission for the rest of her life.

Well, the mission itself wasn't that bad, and seducing her former teacher wasn't that bad either, especially since Kakashi... Stop! She should have focused on talking to him.

She walked slowly towards him and took her place at Hatake's side.

If only she knew that this mission had a hidden agenda, she would never have agreed to such a thing in her life.

"Tsunade feels remorse for what she did to you... in total, for what she did to us," Sakura said, trying to somehow encourage Kakashi to talk, but he remained silent and impenetrable as always.

Sakura sighed in resignation, watching his posture. He looked devastated. And she herself didn't feel any better. She also felt used by Tsunade, but the worse feeling was that she herself used her former teacher.

"Sorry," she said softly, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"For what?" The man was surprised, though he still didn't respond to her gaze.

"For what I did to you... if I knew how you feel about me, then..."

"Then what? Would you fall head over heels in love with me?" This time, Hatake looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

Sakura blushed under the intensity of his gaze.

"I..." she began, but didn't quite know what to say.

After all, she didn't love him the way he loved her. Right?

"I thought so," he muttered, and returned to his former posture.

Haruno thought about all of this. Why had she accepted this mission at all, knowing she would have to go to bed with her former teacher? Why did she care how he must be feeling right now? And why didn't she mind when she was obviously flirting with him there at the bar, or when she was all over him in his apartment? And why when she remembered the moment when Kakashi carried her, did she feel an incredible warmth spread through her interior?

"M... maybe not so right away, but... i-if you let me get to know you better, maybe something would come of it," she replied honestly; though she couldn't avoid stuttering as Kakashi stared at her again so intensely. "It's a pity that it all turned out this way..."

Kakashi lifted the corner of his mouth in a smirk.

"And so you met me from the better side," he said, and when Sakura worked out what he was talking about, she blushed fiery.

"It was about getting to know your passions, interests and personality," Haruno specified, gesturing vigorously.

Kakashi laughed.

"You already know my passions and interests, as well as my personality," the man said after a thought, but when he shifted his curious gaze to her, he noticed that she was staring at him as well.

"But you act differently when I don't treat you as a teacher or call you 'sensei'," she explained, brushing some fluff off his shoulder.

"Really?"

"And you act differently when you try to get to my pants!" she snorted, slapping him lightly on the shoulder with her fist, and Kakashi smiled a bit sadly.

"Just like you. Until now, I knew you only from the polite side," he said, to which the young kunoichi blushed.

"Then maybe... we'll start over?" she offered, holding her hand out to him.

Kakashi smirked again, lifting the corner of his mouth as he shook her hand.

"Hello, I'm Haruno Sakura, the medic ninja and the second strongest kunoichi right after Tsunade," she introduced herself chuckling.

Kakashi bowed gently to her.

"Nice to meet you, Sakura. I'm nobody important, Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi or Kakashi of the sharingan," he said, trying to be serious in his tone.

Pink-haired bent gently over him to place a kiss on his masked cheek.

"Nice to meet you too, Kakashi," she replied, and when their eyes met at a distance of no less than about two centimetres, Sakura could have sworn she felt a strange, electrifying feeling flowing through her body. She didn't know if it was the nature of Kakashi that emanated from him, or something more, but as she stared into his mismatched eyes, she felt an unusual warmth spread over her inside.

On the spur of the moment, Haruno hugged her hand to his cheek.

"Or maybe it's completely not our style to slowly start over?" she whispered as she brought her face closer to his, wanting to put a short kiss on his lips, when suddenly there was a strange crackle and the two shinobi stood on their feet looking around, when they noticed two intruders — in fact both Sakura and Kakashi at that moment they felt like intruders, because in their sight appeared Naruto and Sasuke in a rather passionate embrace.

"Kuso, Sasuke!" the blond-haired snapped as he pushed the other boy away, and then looked at the surprised Sakura and Kakashi.

"What are you doing here?! You were supposed to be on a mission!" Sakura exclaimed in surprise, looking at Kakashi with concern.

Naruto sat down on the ground, massaging his sore head, looking at his former teacher and his former love.

"Oi, Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei," the boy greeted.

"Yo," the man muttered, raising his hand, but he did it to scratch his cheek, watching the two young shinobi suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"

"We could ask you the same," muttered Sasuke, who had already got up from the ground and dusted his clothes, and his face became gloomy and impenetrable again as he stared with his penetrating gaze at Sakura and Kakashi.

"We had no mission assigned to us!" Sakura retorted, crossing her arms over her chest, when she suddenly realized her mistake, as Sasuke's gaze moved along her oversized outfit, still smelling like Kakashi.

"Well, I certainly didn't," the man muttered, looking at her significant.

"Come on, Kakashi. If I had known what she meant, I would never have gone for it!" Sakura growled, giving the grey-haired man a furious look.

Really? asked her Inner Sakura wickedly.

Sasuke smirked.

"Sakura received a lonely mission? I can only guess what could be going on," Sasuke snorted.

Haruno rolled her eyes.

"Men!" she said scathingly.

Naruto was too stunned to analyse the whole situation as well as the fact why...

"Oi, Sakura-chan, why are you wearing Kakashi-sensei's outfit?" The blond-haired was surprised.

"And why you and Sasuke kissed on the tree?" The young kunoichi retorted.

"Hey! It's not like that at all!" the nineteen-year-old said indignantly. "I'm straight, dattebayo!"

Sasuke frowned, glaring at Sakura, and when she glanced at Kakashi, she noticed how with the attention assigned only to him, he was watching the young Uchiha as if he was a real threat here.

She snorted loudly enough to attract Kakashi's attention, and not only his, but he was the only one that interested her.

"We need to have an important conversation, Kakashi. Are you coming?" she said over her shoulder, heading towards his apartment.

Naruto stood dumbfounded as he watched the receding figures of his former teacher and his former love. Was it his imagination or was Kakashi holding Sakura's hand?

"Did I miss something, dattebayo?" Naruto asked, scratching the back of his neck.

Sasuke snorted, going in the completely opposite direction. After a delay, Naruto followed his friend, asking for details.