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Kakashi isn’t delusional enough to think he’s the best jounin-sensei around- his money is on Gai- but he likes to think he has the basics down well enough.
Teach the puppies to kill without getting killed, give them room to grow, and make sure they have a safe place to go- just in case.
That last bit comes from Minato-sensei.
Minato-sensei opened up his home as Kakashi’s- and later the rest of the team’s- safe space. Kakashi thought it unnecessary at first. But more than once he found himself holed up in his sensei’s apartment, rarely remembering how he got there. Sometimes he even ran into Rin or Obito there. No one ever said why they were there and Kakashi never asked. Another regret. But then again neither of them asked him why he was there either. Not that he would've answered.
It doesn't mater. Now it's just another secret for the dead to keep.
Kakashi doesn’t know if the practice is standard or if it was a Minato thing or just a wartime thing. He does it anyway. Backup plans are what make the difference between a dead shinobi and a live one. Habits like that carry over into the rest of your life.
What Kakashi can say for certain is that Sakura is the last of his students he expects to make use of the offer.
They thwart the invasion attempt but it doesn’t come without a cost. The third hokage dead. A good portion of Konaha crushed under Oruchimaru’s summons. And the death toll is still climbing.
Shinobi work in shifts through the night to pull people and bodies from the rubble while others relocate those displaced in the attack to temporary shelters. Kakashi’s team is given the rest of the day of the invasion off as well as the full day after in lieu of their extensive involvement and injuries- a luxury, considering the situation.
Kakashi sends his genin home and works in shifts through the night. He’s uninjured and there is too much to do for every shinobi who fought in the invasion to take a break- especially since pretty much every shinobi fought the invaders. No one tries to send him home- too grateful for the extra help.
Kakashi is just starting to think he should probably leave to meet up with his students soon when he smells strawberries and rain soaked earth- Sakura’s scent. A scent that has no business being out here in the rubble. A rush of cold washes over him.
He looks up, scanning his surroundings for any hint of her. It’s only then that he realizes he knows where he’s standing. With everything destroyed it’s hard to tell but he’s standing in what was once a quaint little street some distance off one of the main roads occupied primarily by civilian and shinobi who retired early in their careers. Its a neighborhood he's at least passingly familiar with.
Kakashi zeros in on a particular house. What’s left of it anyway. A pit opens in his stomach. Kakashi turns his feet towards the remnants of Sakura’s home.
He sees the bodies first. Cause of death is easy to place.
Kizashi lays face first on the ground, rubble crushing his legs and most of his torso. Mebuki lies next to him, poised as if she knelt to help her husband before rubble crushed most of her chest and head. Their tightly clasped hands tell him they didn’t die right away.
Kakashi feels like he’s been carved from a block of ice.He was distracted but that’s no excuse. He should have remembered that they lived in the middle of the attack zone.
Idane, one of the Shinobi he’s been working alongside comes up behind him.
“Damn,” Idane says softly. He goes past Kakashi, ready to dig the bodies out and check for survivors but pauses when he realizes Kakashi hasn’t followed him. He looks back at him.
“...those are my student’s parents,” Kakashi says. Idane’s eyes widen and he curses softly.
“Were they…I mean do you know where…” Idane asks. Kakashi stares at the bodies.
“I sent her home,” Kakashi says.
“Shit.” Idane grimaces.
Kakashi turns his nose to the air to catch Sakura’s scent again, shifting through death and dust and Shinobi shifting through the rubble.
“Her scent is here. I need to find her.”
He barely hears Idane's "Good luck!"
Sakura’s scent meanders through the city, a clear tell of her distress even if her scent wasn't drenched in it.
To Kakashi’s surprise it trails closer and closer to his apartment until he finds himself following it through his own window. The scent is stronger here, more present.
Kakashi performs a quick search of his apartment. His closet door is cracked. He pulls it open enough to see Sakura’s feet, still in their standard issue sandals.
He crouches down, careful not to block her exit. Sakura is curled into a tight ball, arms around her knees and head tucked into the shelter of her body.
“Sakura,” Kakashi calls quietly. She shows no sign of having heard him.
He shifts so he’s sitting against the wall next to the door, body half turned so he can see her without cornering her. “Sakura,” Kakashi says again. Still no response.
Undeterred, Kakashi tries again. He reaches out and touches her arm, the easiest and least threatening place in reach, as he calls her name once more. She flinches and tenses but makes no move to throw him off.
“I’m sorry,” Kakashi says. For your loss, for not remembering they would be in the thick of it, for not at least making sure you didn’t find them alone.
She inhales, too sharp and too fast, and a shaky sob breaks out. All Kakashi can do is squeeze her arm and wait it out. He’s never been good with this. Over the years, in spite of his numerous personal experiences in the area, he’s only gotten worse.
Sakura exhausts herself crying and falls asleep. Kakashi carefully collects her into his arms and moves her to his bed. He drapes a spare blanket around her and moves to the kitchen.
By the time she wakes up she’s burried in dogs and Kakashi has a simple stirfry and rice waiting for her. He knows there’s nothing he can say to make it better so he doesn’t try, letting Pakun bully her out of bed and onto the couch. Bull drops the quilt on the back of the couch over her shoulders. Kakashi hands her a cup of tea she probably won’t drink and tells her there’s food in the kitchen if she wants it, even though he knows she probably won’t want to eat either. It doesn’t make it better. Nothing can. But it’s something.
She doesn’t cry again but she does nod off in front of the tv eventually. Kakashi is quick to pull her untouched cup away before it can spill. She stirs when he picks her up but drifts back off at his soft “Just me.” By the time they reach the bed she’s already dead to the world again. He awkwardly settles the blanket over her and pulls a spare out of the closet for himself. At least the couch is comfortable, he tells himself.
Sakura wakes with a crick in her neck. She can feel a small body curled up around her neck and over her collar bone. There's a weight over her legs heavy enough to make them go numb. Something else encircles her head, soft breaths ruffling her hair. For a moment, one blissful moment, she’s caught between sleepy contentment and a growing confusion.
And then she remembers.
There are dogs because she is in sensei’s apartment. She is in sensei’s apartment because her parents- she shoves the thought away and starts to slowly work her way free of the tangle of dogs, doing her best not to wake them. She fails almost immediately. A voice in her ear, soft and rumbling. “Up already pup?”
[Some time later, the plot points of which are lost to time because I kept them in my head instead of written down]
She lays it out for him in flat, even, tones. Her grandmother, the last of her living family in the village, has decided to leave and rejoin the rest of the Haruno clan. When Sakura objected to abandoning her position as a Shinobi of Konaha her grandmother gave her an ultimatum. Either Sakura leaves with her grandmother or her grandmother will disown her and strip her of the Haruno name.
Sakura cries herself to sleep. All he can do is sit there and let her cry against him. He’s always been shitty at comforting people.
He settles her into his bed and rolls out a futon.
In the morning he wakes before her, makes breakfast for two people and his dogs, and lets the dogs do the waking.