Sakura knocked on the door lightly, mostly because she wasn’t really sure she wanted anybody to answer. A red eyed boy swung open the door anyway. He didn’t necessarily care about Sakura’s qualms but when he saw her making herself small on his stoop, he turned and yelled into the depths of the house.
“Mom!” he called. “It’s for you!”
When he was done hollering, he addressed Sakura. “You can come in if you want.”
Sakura found the grace to smile and thanked him before crossing the threshold. The boy smiled back, a smile that dimpled his cheeks, and with a pang of something that wasn’t quite sadness Sakura realized he had Asuma’s crooked nose.
“Sakura!” She turned at the sound of her name in time to see Kurenai wiping her dainty hands on her apron. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I – I’m sorry,” Sakura said. “I should have…”
Kurenai waved her hand dismissively, “It’s no problem. I was just finishing up lunch if you don’t mind?”
“Of course not.”
Kurenai’s son slipped away to the living room towards the soft crackle of the television, and Sakura followed the older kunoichi into the small kitchen where the stench of several simmering pots assaulted her nose. Feeling lightheaded, Sakura slumped at the cramped table and covered her mouth. Kurenai didn’t say anything immediately; she finished her task at the stove and lowered the heat, then sat down across from Sakura.
“How far along are you?” Kurenai asked softly.
Sakura panicked. “How did you – ?”
“Intuition,” Kurenai said. “So, how far?”
“Eight weeks,” Sakura answered.
Naruto had been dead for six.
“I’m sorry,” Kurenai said. Something about her words stung despite her softened tone, and Sakura began to cry.
“How did you do it?” Sakura asked wretchedly.
“The same way you’ll do it,” Kurenai answered. “One miserable day at a time.”
She reached across the table and took Sakura’s hand in comfort. Sakura squeezed hard, and she thought about the boy with the crooked nose watching TV in the next room and imagined her own boy with gleaming blue eyes.
“Is it worth it?” Sakura whispered.
Kurenai smiled, for what it was worth. “I think so.”
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fancy word meme: gymnophoria. the sensation that someone is mentally undressing you.
“Is something wrong?”
He looked up at his subject, his muse, and smiled as sweetly as he knew. “Nothing.”
Except as he looked at Sakura in flesh and blood, he realized that yes, something was very, very wrong. Something in the eyes that left him wary, unsettled. Exposed.
fancy word meme: mamihlapinatapei. the look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.
Naruto’s gaze is heavy and hard when Sakura lifts her eyes to meet it.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
His voice is deeper and his face sterner than they have ever been – the voice and face of a man, of a Hokage. But he’s still only Naruto. He’s still whisker marked and blue eyed like the sky, and he still looks at her like she’s hung the moon when all Sakura can recall is hanging her head in shame.
“I’m certain,” she replies. His tiny smile doesn’t go unnoticed and quickly, Sakura backtracks. “I mean, be realistic, Naruto! You need all the help you can get.”
His smile doesn’t diminish and as he leans back in his chair, he laughs. “You’re probably right, y’know.”
“Of course I’m right! Why else would I offer to be your assistant, hm?”
Sakura huffs and takes the liberty of crossing the invisible line to stand on the business side of his desk alongside him while Naruto sighs and lifts a scroll from the waiting pile labeled incoming. His grin fades once more into a small, sheepish smile.
“You absolutely cannot tell Naruto,” Sakura whispered against his lips.
Sai’s brow furrowed; he hadn’t even considered it, but now the question begged an answer. “Why?”
Sakura sat back in his lap and her fingers danced from the nape of his neck and over his shoulders to rest upon his chest. “Why would you?” she countered, cocking her head.
“I wouldn’t,” he replied flatly. He had already run gamut of scenarios regarding their teammate and independently concluded it wasn't possible to simply tell Naruto. Sai wondered briefly why Sakura didn’t trust his judgment, but her soft smile and still softer kiss dispelled the worry from his mind, coaxing him out of his concern and into half-lidded stupor as her mouth strayed from his. Her breath tickled his ear.
“It’s just not time yet,” she told him, her hips rolling into his.
Sai found no further objection to keeping the secret.
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for asamino! this was my first time writing itachi. it was a very strange experience.
“Are you okay?”
Itachi didn’t respond, so Ino slipped quietly into bed beside him and laid her head on his shoulder. He hadn’t taken off his vest yet, and when she fluttered her arm over his waist and pressed her face into his neck, the iron scent of blood lingered on his skin. It went without saying that something dreadful had occurred in the three weeks since she last saw him, and Ino hated his sorrow. She closed her eyes against the sting of borrowed pain.
“I’m leaving ANBU,” he murmured quietly. Outside the sky blinked wearily, its stars as tired and far away as Itachi’s words felt. Ino lifted her head.
“What?”
He shifted his weight imperceptibly and covered her hand on his hip with his own. “I’m leaving ANBU,” he repeated.
“Are you serious?” Ino asked. They had talked about it before, but he always said it wasn’t the right time. It never was, and Ino had come to terms with that in the past four years of their relationship.
“I’ve already turned in my mask to the Fourth and spoken to my father,” he replied. “I start training at the station next week.”
Ino was speechless. Itachi leaving ANBU and joining the Police Task Force meant far more than perhaps his living past thirty. Far beyond that. It meant a lifetime to share fully between them, a family and a secure future, but mostly it meant an end to her solitude even as they lay side by side.
like all good sk should be, i dedicate this drabble to enton.
When Uchiha Sasuke first sees Karin, he returns her glasses and utters a soft goodbye. It seems like the right thing to say because he's very certain they will never meet again. He goes back to his team and finishes the forest trial worse for the wear, and in the rage of events that follow he doesn't find the time to think about pretty girls or their red hair.
When he sees her the second time, he doesn't recognize her. She looks different than before – older, thinner, and without a trace of fear written in her face. After careful consideration and dozens of sightings more, he decides that's the reason he didn't immediately make the connection between the girl and the forest and the girl in his room. It isn't because her bright hair has dulled, or that her skin is now covered in mottled bites. It's because she stands boldly and does not tremble, not even when the ground shakes and the earth divides.
“What are you doing here, Karin?” he asks her, sitting upright in his bed. He's haphazardly bandaged himself around the nicks and contusions of training, and he's retreated into solitude to sleep it off. Orochimaru himself doesn't waste his time on things so trivial, citing that discomfort will make him grow, and Kabuto is far away. Something or other about Akatsuki and feeding false spies.
“I heard that you were hurt,” she replies.
Sasuke examines himself, “Not really.”
She blushes, but in the dark he doesn't notice. “Well... if you were hurt, I would help you.”
This gives him pause. He's heard from others in Oto about Karin and her ability, about how she screams when teeth sink into her flesh. Sasuke isn't stupid. He knows precisely what he is being offered.
“My injuries aren't serious,” he says. “There isn't any need to...”
“But if there were,” she interrupts.
And he hears her again, inaudibly in his heart, I would help you, but he doesn't say thank you and Karin doesn't expect it. Instead Sasuke lays back down, and while she turns to the door and closes it behind her he finally finds time to think about pretty girls and their red hair.
just something that didnt quite fit in my multi-chap minakushi.
The first time Minato goes on a mission with Kushina, they’re fourteen years old and he’s completely appalled. He’s seen people do a lot of strange things on over nighters, from all ranges of superstitious behavior and tics to disappearing into the woods for some alone time while they were supposed to be on watch. He’s never seen this though, and he stares.
“What are you looking at, Namikaze? It’s just hair, y’know!”
He apologizes profusely. “Sorry, it’s just… I’ve never seen… how do you even call that?”
She pauses, both hands hovering above her head with beautiful strands of crimson hair clutched impossibly between what looks like all her fingers at once. Minato is certain he’s offended her somehow – an easy task to accomplish, really. They didn’t call her the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero for nothing, and his mind reels trying to come up with as many good excuses and sorrys as could possibly be necessary. But instead her violet eyes soften then cut with excitement. He realizes faintly that he’s in trouble.
“It’s called plaiting,” she tells him, once more resuming her frantic finger knitting at her scalp. “It keeps my hair from strangling me in my sleep.”
What? If that was really a risk she ran daily, then he was mortified.
“You should definitely get a haircut if it’s that dangerous!” he tells her earnestly. No amount of beauty, however great, was worth flirting with death every night.
Kushina rolls her eyes. “You dolt, it just keeps it from tangling.”
“Oh,” he says, obviously relieved. “In that case, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t cut your hair.”
Kushina pauses again, this time with her fingers loitering at the base of her neck where the braid she was working came down from her scalp and turned to flow over her shoulder. He wonders if she’s also thinking of the forgotten strands she plucked and he followed the year before, and if she remembers any of what he said back then about how beautiful she didn’t realize she was. Wordlessly she resumes her work, moving rapidly now from her neck to her breast to her hip before finishing the plait with an elastic tie from her wrist.
“You’re stupid,” she tells him flatly, flinging the long braid over her shoulder.
i dont know why i wrote this.
where did it come from, where did it go.
Naruto blushed every time she hugged him. It was nothing to Ino and she didn't know it, but before her he could count each and every one of his life's intimate touches on one hand. Not anymore, though. Ino would wrap him up in an embrace every chance she got and Naruto relished each and every one. She was so soft and she smelled like daisies and sometimes, when he least expected it, she would press her lips to his cheek just short of his mouth. Those hugs were the best and always left him bright red, causing Ino to giggle and twinge pink herself as she noticed.
This hug was a little different.
He had been away from the village for three months which in the grand scheme of things really, really wasn't that long of a time, but Ino was acting like he had been away for three years. She crashed into him and clung tightly to his shoulders, burying her face in his jacket and muttering her I missed you's into the fabric.
“I missed you, too, Ino-chan,” he said, holding her loosely and scratching his head. His cheeks were burning red.
“How much?” she asked softly.
He assured her, “A lot.”
It was a known fact that Naruto wasn't very romantic, but it was enough. She lifted her head away from his chest and smiled up at him. She was beautiful, Naruto thought. She was beautiful and she made it a point to hug him even when he had been away, regardless of if his words were clumsy when it came to her or that he never quite knew what to do with his hands when she held him. Ino was steady like that, constant and grounded and enduring. He wondered greedily then whether he would be treated to one of her teasing almost-kisses, and he was very shocked when this time she laid her lips squarely over his own.
Ino's kiss was tentative and testing and after a moment of gentle coaxing, he returned it eagerly. Instinctively he took control, cupping her chin and biting her lip softly because it felt like the thing to do. When the kiss broke he rested his forehead against hers, holding her tight and close. He noticed then that for the first time Ino was blushing deeper than him, her cheeks painted a brilliant shade of crimson. He grinned at her.
“Well, you see, I walked into a spider web on my way out of the door this morning and I couldn't find the spider so I had to go back inside to shower again.”
“For three hours, Kakashi-sensei?”
“Yes.”
Sakura narrowed her eyes. “Liar.”
The jounin smiled as evidenced by the crinkle of his exposed eye and the faint tilt of his head, but the gesture was empty. There had been no spiders and they both knew it. Still, he had to commend himself that his excuses were becoming almost believable, even if Sakura didn't share that opinion.
“You wound me.”
“And you didn't run into any spiders!” Sakura screeched. “And if you had, you would have just squished them and continued on your way.”
“But I couldn't find the spider, Sakura-chan.”
“There was no spider.”
“Oh but there was. He was big and hairy with long black legs and...”
“I thought you couldn't find it?”
Kakashi scratched his chin. “Not at first.”
She rolled her eyes. “One day, I'm going to buy you a watch.”
Kakashi snorted. Like he hadn't heard that one before.
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There was only one way to end this guessing game of misery. Karin slowed her pace.
When she evened step with Suigetsu, he eyed her warily and slurped loudly. “Yes?”
She kept her eyes trained on Juugo's back ahead of them. “Yesterday. What were you doing in the woods? You left Juugo.”
It was innocuous phrasing. It asked all the questions she needed answered and disguised them as concern (?) for their taller companion of questionable sanity. Still, when she glanced in his direction the way she caught Suigetsu eyeballing her made her feel like he saw right through her drivel. She put her eyes back on Juugo as nonchalantly as possible.
“Pissing,” Suigetsu replied at length after he had finished scrutinizing her. “See, when you take in as many fluids as me...”
“You are a fluid,” Karin rebuked. “Be serious. You can't just wander off and leave Juugo or anyone else exposed.”
That sounded so reasonable. She patted herself on the back.
“Yeah whatever, he can take care of himself. Juugo's a big boy. His balls even dropped last week.”
“Don't be crass. I just...”
Suigetsu stopped and looked oddly collected. “You just what? Can't stop thinking about me? Want to know where I am every moment of every day? How flattering.”
“Don't be stupid,” she hissed.
He sucked hard on his straw and Karin regretted it when she made eye contact.
“Stop that.”
“You're more wound up than usual. What's wrong? Is it that time or something?”
Karin tched unhappily. “Why, can you smell blood in the water?”
“Not strictly speaking, no...”
“You will if you keep making dumb jokes,” she threatened weakly, jabbing a finger at his chest. “Now, what were you doing?”
“Pissing.”
“Ugh!”
She marched away after that, leaving him standing in the road. He was so exasperating! Willfully talking to Suigetsu was akin to willfully walking on hot coals, but as she gained ground and caught back up with Juugo and Sasuke she was glad she had taken initiative. She had probably lost five years off her life for her effort, but she felt calmer. Suigetsu wasn't clever; he wouldn't have passed up the opportunity to lord it over her if he'd caught her doing anything compromising or embarrassing the day before by the stream. He wouldn't have seen the chance to bide and wait for the perfect moment to strike back at her because he would have been far too busy looking for the first moment to attack.
Suigetsu lacked it, it being whatever it was that attracted girls like Karin to guys like Sasuke as flies were attracted to the proverbial honey pot. He supposed he was good looking enough – he had two sets of canine teeth, if you were into that sort of thing – and he didn't smell. He'd asked Juugo about that last week when he had been snubbed by yet another inn maid. He was prone to amassing a damp funk when they went about traveling for too long and he had thought that maybe his scent was unappealing and thus turning away the ladies, but when that proved to be a false lead he was back to square one.
Not that he really wanted grubby faced maids (with disarmingly pert asses) to like him.
Certainly not.
It was just mind-numbingly frustrating to see every female that they came into contact with blush to their toes when Sasuke so much as glanced at them when Sasuke himself showed about as much interest in women as a dead frog in a door jam.
“You should try to care less,” Juugo suggested almost helpfully.
Suigetsu felt like Juugo was the least qualified person he knew to be giving love advice, so instead he devoted most of his being to caring a whole damn lot. If Suigetsu wasn't getting any, nobody was getting any. This philosophy had manifested in practice by his actively cockblocking Karin whenever he could, if only for her attention (of which he was unfortunately starved.) It was a failing tactic. Karin was crafty and underhanded and... and notoriously good at giving both he and Juugo the slip and disappearing with Sasuke for what he presumed had to be a most unsatisfying attempt to awaken whatever latent sexuality Sasuke possessed. Judging from the way Karin remained stalwartly sour, she had yet to succeed.
It warmed Suigetsu's heart. But it also pissed him off.
He wasn't sure what to make of that.
“You should really care less.”
“Eh, what do you know?”
Juugo was in a tree, harassing some birds and Suigetsu was having none of his awkward attempts at profundity. Karin and Sasuke were supposed to be back by now and if Suigetsu wanted to get himself worked up about it, he would. It had nothing to do with the fact that his companions had been off on their own for close to an hour (which was plenty of time for all kinds of sordid encounters.)
It had everything to do with the fact they were having to sleep out in the wilderness since Sasuke had some kind of aversion to modern comfort and luxury and couldn't be pestered into traveling the mere 20 kilometers to the next village on Karin's radar. He was also thirsty, which was another (valid!) reason to be appalled by Sasuke and Karin's disappearance. They had gone to get water since Suigetsu had lost his water fetching privileges (...he really couldn't be getting onto anyone about dicking around a watering hole and forgetting to come back) and Juugo was already precariously perched with his feathered friends. But they could have hurried. He was technically dying, after all.
“I'm going to find them,” he announced, standing.
Juugo whistled lightly. There were no spoken words but he had clearly said that's a bad idea.
“Fuck off.” Suigetsu wasn't much for unspoken subtleties.
He left Juugo softly swaying in the treetop and marched in the direction Sasuke and Karin had left. His ears were sensitive and so was his nose, so he both heard the faint bubble of the stream and smelt its damp banks before he saw it. The foliage wasn't so much dense as it was impenetrable and he was deeply considering hacking and slashing his way through when he heard them. Faint voices, hushed voices, one soft and a bit squeaky and the other dipping lower and lower in a timbre that made Suigetsu nervous. He still wanted to slice the forest into submission by and large, but a smaller and quieter part of him really, really wanted to hear what they were saying. He edged closer and under the cover of the very flora he despised, he was able to eavesdrop quite efficiently.
“You were fetching water then, too.” That was Karin, who sounded more soft and sincere than Suigetsu imagined her capable. “You had a water bottle in your hand, and...”
“I didn't think I would ever see you again,” Sasuke murmured in response. This struck Suigetsu as odd. As a rule, Sasuke did not do anything as gentle as murmur, yet his dulcet tones were unmistakable even at a distance. “I didn't think it would matter.”
“Oh.”
He didn't need to see Karin's face to know that Sasuke had just shattered her. Suigetsu could feel the despondency rolling off her in waves, and the way the weight of her sadness settled on him was completely unwelcome. Normally he was all for tormenting Karin, whittling away at her composure until it cracked and frayed. He liked making her squirm and riling her up until the steam was practically coming out of her ears. It wasn't hard – she was a redhead. But this was something else and he took no pleasure in the way Sasuke had just rendered her fragile and gone in for the kill. What he had with Karin was pure sport. This was more like warfare.
A beat of silence passed and Suigetsu became acutely aware of his own heartbeat. Sasuke spoke again in a barely audible whisper.
“But I did, and it does.”
It was quiet again and Suigetsu didn't like it. He shifted his position, watching as his hand reached out and pushed aside the curtain of vegetation that hid them from view. Already he was very sure what he would see and he didn't want to look, but he was on autopilot. He couldn't help it, and when he did look as much as he wished he hadn't, he couldn't turn away.
They were kissing.
He had known they were. They were kissing in a way that said finally, like they had always been out of each others' grasp instead of fully within it for weeks and weeks on end. It made Suigetsu a little sick to watch as Karin's face heated up slowly until it matched her hair and her glasses slipped. Sasuke looked about as enthusiastic as Suigetsu had ever seen him (not saying much) but he too was dusted pink from cheek to cheek.
Suigetsu slunk away. He didn't want to get caught.
Sasuke might actually kill him.
…and he might kill Sasuke.
Thirst forgotten, Suigetsu legged it back to the campsite where he had left Juugo and threw himself down angrily at the base of the larger boy's tree. He was upset and just dense enough not to realize why. Yes, this was infuriating, but not wholly unexpected. How long could a person reasonably hold out with Karin throwing herself at them, anyway? Suigetsu crossed his arms and stewed in his own foreign emotion. Brooding didn't really come naturally to him, but he made a fine show of it anyway.
Above him, Juugo whistled lightly. It said I told you so. He climbed down.
I was born at the hands of the potter
I was torn from the start
Kakashi weighed the situation for approximately three seconds before spilling his guts. It kind of felt nice to tell someone what was going on, even if that someone was a potentially psychotic doctor who had just admitted to poisoning him. I am Hatake Kakashi and I was the student of the Fourth Hokage. I am fifteen years old... the facts rolled of his tongue like turpentine.
And why shouldn't they? There was no Konoha to protect anymore.
In the absence of secrets to keep, Kakashi realized the only thing he had to guard now was his own life. And maybe Obito's, too, since he liked to think of himself as a generally benevolent entity and Obito would surely die if Kakashi didn't take care of him. Asuma was another matter entirely. If he was going to make any sort of habit of throwing cigarettes at men with direct control over whether he lived or died, then Sarutobi was on his own. Kakashi couldn't work miracles, and he couldn't fix that kind of stupid no matter how quick his hands or glib his tongue.
"You're far from home, little ninja," Jin said when Kakashi had finished coming clean about his identity. "How did you get here, in Frost?"
"Captured," Kakashi said shortly. His eyelids felt heavy. "Kumo captured me and my team."
Jin laughed, hard. "You three? Your team? A shinobi and a comedian..."
Well. Kakashi had known they were a sight, but the laughing was just rude. At home, before Kumo had come to kick them while they were down, Kakashi was on his way to being an elite jonin. Minato-sensei had been nearly convinced to let him join ANBU before the first wave of invaders came and razed it all to dust. Jin leaned in close enough that Kakashi could smell his breath.
"Would you call yourself an enemy of the Cloud?" he asked.
Spearmint tickled Kakashi's sensitive nose and he answered recklessly. "Yes."
This seemed to satisfy the doctor, who smirked as he jabbed Kakashi's arm and administered an antidote that stung in his veins. "I appreciate an honest man," Jin said, yanking the needle free of Kakashi's skin.
Kakashi was seeing stars, but he heard the real message loud and clear. I appreciate a nervous man. I appreciate a man who is afraid for his life. Kakashi's arm felt like fire and for a few alarming moments, he was absolutely certain he was going to die. Everything so far was meaningless... though the bean buns had been delicious. He should have just stayed on as Tarui's prisoner. Would they be in Kumogakure by now? If Senju Hayate had stayed with them, would things have turned out any differently? Tenderly, he wished he had kissed Mitarashi Anko last year on White Day. Somewhat less tenderly, he wished he had done a lot of other things to Mitarashi Anko last year on White Day.
Kakashi lost consciousness to the fleeting thought that he was going to die a virgin.
…He regained consciousness to the thought that Obito's voice could raise the dead.
"Could you shut up, Obito?" he complained, applying pressure and carefully removing the IV from his arm for fear of getting drugged and looking around for signs of something to drink. His mouth felt like someone had stuffed it with cotton.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the curiously comfortable and totally free bed," Obito remarked sourly, gazing emptily in Kakashi's general direction. They really needed to get him something to cover his empty sockets; now that there was a free moment to think about it, it was starting to gross Kakashi out. "Strip, Hatake. Etsuko should be back soon and she's going to wash our clothes."
How nice of her. "But what do I wear in the meantime?"
"What do I care?" Obito shrugged.
"I care," Asuma called from his own bed. He had drawn the curtains back and was looking livelier than Kakashi had seen him since they left the village. "I still have two eyes left and I'd really like to not defile them. She left gowns for you and Obito."
"Speaking of your two eyes," the Uchiha said, swiveling himself towards Asuma. "You should give me one. I've been thinking and it's really selfish of you to keep two while Kakashi only has one and I have none."
Asuma was completely scandalized. "Are you kidding me?"
"But they're such pretty eyes."
"I only have eight fingers."
"And that has what to do with giving me an eye?"
Kakashi searched the cabinets opposite of their beds and found them stocked with useless things like q-tips and tongue depressors. What he wanted was a surgical mask to replace the itchy and sweat crusted nylon one that he currently wore so Etsuko could wash it, too, and for something to cover his IV site. Finally finding what he was after, he patched himself up before grabbing a mask and the gowns that were folded on the counter.
"C'mon," he said, holding both the gowns and mask under his arm and removing Obito's drip. Kakashi pulled him by the collar towards the bathroom. "We're taking a shower."
The argument over whether or not Asuma was obligated to donate an eye was already grating on his nerves and unfortunately it continued for the next thirty minutes. That was how long it took for he and Obito to get washed and changed while both engaged parties carried on yelling through the wall. Kakashi scrubbed his scalp with anti-bacterial soap that stung all over where his skin was covered in various nicks and scratches. He sighed deeply, ignoring the little twitches of pain entirely, and was appalled by how much dirt was left on the tiles when they finished bathing.
Had they really been so filthy?
Kakashi drank a few gulps of water from the tap before scooping his soiled clothes up off the floor and adjusting his surgical mask. He needed to hide the few tools he stole from H before giving his clothes up to Etsuko. Trusting Obito to find his own way back to his cot, Kakashi breezed out of the bathroom and to his own bedside. The inside of his pillowcase would do nicely as a hiding spot for now... he bent over and dumped the contents of H's pouch into the zippered inner pillow, tampons and all.
"For fuck's sake, Kakashi!"
"Hmm?"
"Those gowns have an open back."
He fluffed his pillow until it looked like nothing was amiss. "Oh, sorry."
So he defiled Asuma's eyes anyway. Oops. Obito was feeling his way around the perimeter of the room and hollering about how seeing Kakashi's full moon was karmic retribution for hogging two thirds of the squad's available eyeballs. Feeling a little embarrassed, Kakashi sat down rather swiftly and started rolling up his clothes because while he didn't really know how to fold them properly, he still didn't want to hand an unruly pile over to Etsuko. He also wanted to hide his underwear, which seemed kind of foolish since she would see them anyway no matter where he hid them in his laundry. He just didn't want to see her see them, because that would be weird. Obito cared a lot less and tossed his clothes at what he thought was the bed, sighing loudly and theatrically when they clattered to the floor.
Kakashi folded the nylon sleeve he had tied around his head to cover his empty socket into a square. Sometime in the shower while Obito was prattling about how he hoped Etsuko would provide him with further dango deliveries, Kakashi decided he wouldn't tell him or Asuma about his little visit from the surgeon. Even if his companions weren't on the same page of their varying disabilities, Kakashi saw things clearly and as they were. Jin hadn't been wrong to laugh at the notion of them as a team – their situation was pretty grim and as it stood, he was the only one of the three of them who was remotely battle ready. Obito hadn't been the most coordinated creature since his return from the grave two years before and without his remaining eye, he was thwarted by things like uneven ground and end tables. The Sharingan had kept his patchwork body in order and without it, Kakashi worried for him.
At least Asuma had retained all of his senses, but Kakashi had been right all along about him losing the fingers. With only eight digits remaining, Asuma had lost somewhere between most and all of his jutsu... he couldn't make the seals with parts of his hands missing. Fortunately, Asuma had always been pretty handy with his nature manipulation, utilizing his natural wind affinity with specialized trench knives and kunai to the point he could cut through solid rock. But they didn't have any specialized weaponry for Asuma. They had one very ordinary kunai (that Kakashi had dibs on) and some tampons.
So no, Kakashi wasn't going to incite a panic in their meager and handicapped ranks. He was going to treat this like a mission and for the moment, it was solo. Their first objective had been escape and after that, it had been to get Asuma patched up. With that more or less completed their next operation was once again escape, this time from the very house of healing they had previously sought. It was all relatively straightforward and in the absence of unknown poisonous drugs infecting his body and turning his eyelids to lead, Kakashi felt pretty confident about their prospects. He laid his rolled up clothes out at the foot of his bed.
He wasn't prepared for Etsuko when she arrived, or for the wicked grin she gave him when she caught his eye. Nothing needed to be said. They both knew and understood that she was the one who had poisoned him the day before when she fiddled with his drip. From the laundry basket at her hip she produced Asuma's clothes that had apparently been taken from him the day before when he went in for surgery and were now folded and pressed, handing them over along with his sandals. She teased Obito for tossing his things on the floor and... and blushed when he teased her back? Really, Kakashi did not understand this... He leaned back into his pillow protectively as Etsuko finally made her rounds to him.
"Why is your IV out, Minato?" she asked sweetly, picking up his laundry and placing it in the wicker basket at her hip. He didn't find her husky voice attractive anymore. It only made his skin crawl.
"I had an itch."
"It's not safe to remove it yourself," she scolded. "Now I'll have to do it all over again and your vein was so hard to find..."
"I deny treatment," he deadpanned.
She narrowed her eyes. "I'm not sure grandpa will like that."
"I'd be happy to talk to him about it... and he took his out, too."
How Obito knew Kakashi was pointing at him was either miraculous or as was far more likely, a testament to knowing his teammate far too well. He groaned, "No, I didn't! Ka – Minato's just a fruit. He hates doctors' offices and hospitals, y'see. Thinks he's dying if he's not being tended to by his own personal medic. He took mine out."
Etsuko laughed without ever taking her eyes off Kakashi. "Silly Minato," she agreed.
So they would continue to play the name game. Good. It made Kakashi's self-appointed task of keeping their situation secret far easier. Silly Minato was happy to see her back as she left... and less happy to see Asuma's violently curious stare. He held a finger to his lips and nodded towards Obito. Asuma nodded stoutly and without question or answer, he began to remove his own IV. Later, he lamented, he would have to explain things to Sarutobi. Kakashi could only hope that Asuma would level with him about the need, at least for the time being, for him to act alone. Hopefully Obito would take a nap or something. They could talk then.
An elderly man brought them breakfast trays shortly and thankfully, he couldn't be bothered to stay and watch them eat. When he was gone Kakashi bit his thumb and summoned Pakkun. The pug was far beyond even his latter days of puppyhood, but due either to a lack of training on Kakashi's part or a natural inability, he wasn't much good for knowing the near-unidentifiable stench of poison. Nothing bad happened after Kakashi fed him portions from all the parts of his meal, though, so he decided it was safe enough. Asuma watched the whole thing with a slacked jaw, putting two and two together.
"You're a terrible person," he said.
Obito scoffed and spoke around a full mouth, completely unaware yet somehow still in full agreement. "I could've told you that."
Kakashi just shrugged and scratched Pakkun behind the ears.
Sakumo was the one who introduced Kakashi to his summoning contract; he was around six years old. At the time Pakkun had really been a puppy. That was why Kakashi was being given a contract, after all – his father's own summon had given birth to pups and they were newly weaned.
"You get pick of the litter, son," Sakumo said. "Take your time."
Looking them all over carefully, he and felt completely lost for what he was supposed to be looking for. Two of them were girls, but Kakashi didn't really care about their gender. They were all pretty indistinguishable from one another; four little brown wrinkles that pranced around their ankles while a fifth, surlier wrinkle glared at them from a distance. That one stuck out, Kakashi supposed. Its face was particularly droopy and squished and Kakashi couldn't help but think that he and the pup had a similar look about their eyes and maybe their personalities, too. Tired, and unwilling to prance. Kakashi picked the grumpy dog up – it was a boy – and smiled a little when he started gnawing on his fingers. He was still teething so his bad manners would have to be forgiven, at least until Kakashi got a chance to begin training him.
Sakumo smiled, too. "This it?"
"Yes," Kakashi answered.
"I thought you might pick him," his father said knowingly. "You have a name picked out?"
"Uh-huh – ouch –" the pup might be teething, but he still bit pretty hard. "I'm going to call him Pakkun."
The mother pug gathered up the rejected pups. "You take care of him, y'hear?"
Kakashi nodded stoutly, promising he would as Sakumo dismissed her. He didn't see her, her pups, or any of his father's pack ever again. The occasion never arose and Sakumo was dead before autumn fell.
When Etsuko brought his freshly laundered clothes back to him, she had folded his boxers neatly on the top of the pile.
"Grandfather wants to see you," she told him sweetly, "so get dressed."
Her giggle as he walked to the bathroom to do so reminded him again sharply that his gown was open backed, and whatever confidence he had tricked himself into feeling that morning fled. In the bathroom he dressed swiftly, yanking up his sleeves and sighing with relief when he snapped his nylon mask into place. Lots of people had comforts and his just happened to be his mask, which smelled blessedly clean, if not a little too lavendery. When Kakashi did his own washing he used scentless detergents as was shinobi standard (you didn't want enemies with sensitive noses sniffing you out), but what could he really do about the fanciful washing his uniform had gotten now? Besides, she'd pressed his underwear. What a luxury.
When he emerged fully dressed, Etsuko was beaming at him in a way that simultaneously struck him with fear and dusted his cheeks pink. "Ready?" she asked him.
"What's the man want with you?" Obito asked hurriedly, unable to keep the edge of nerves from his voice.
"Grandfather just needs to talk to him about your bill," Etsuko answered before Kakashi could answer. "It shouldn't take long at all."
Obito didn't appear comforted at all, probably because he knew they didn't have any money.
"Don't worry about it, Obito," Kakashi said evenly, steadfastly ignoring Asuma's glare.
"What about me?" Sarutobi jeered. "Should I be biting my nails?"
Kakashi smiled at him. "Of course not, that's a filthy habit."
Asuma's stare intensified into an expression that said as if I have ever been concerned if my habits were filthy and Etsuko pulled Kakashi by the arm from the room. He twisted out of her grasp without glamor, informing her that he could walk just fine by himself.
"Are you sure?" she asked him. "What if we cross the street?"
"I'll manage," he replied flatly and unamused.
They didn't cross the street, only the hall. Etsuko led him to a small office filled with an inordinate number of rickety metal filing cabinets and a desk with a thickly folded piece of paper stuck beneath one leg to keep it from teetering back and forth. It was not the sort of place he had expected the surgeon to keep as his own, and actually he was greatly reminded of the time Minato-sensei had spent using what had more or less been a broom closet in lieu of the opulent Hokage's study when said study was being remodeled. Etsuko instructed him to take a seat. Her grandfather would be with him shortly – he was with a patient and it would just be a moment. Kakashi sat down obediently to wait and stared resolutely out the window and into a very uninteresting alleyway while ignoring the fact that Etsuko remained stationed at the door. His eyes lingered on the latch. There was absolutely nothing keeping him from throwing open the window and leaping away to freedom.
Nothing except his comrades.
Worse than trash, he thought to himself. Those who abandon their friends are worse than trash. Obito's words thrummed in his ears and in his conscience until he was distracted by the throwing open of the door. He swiveled in his seat to see the surgeon dismissing Etsuko, surprised at what he saw in the light. Sakurada Jin was indeed an elderly man, perhaps a bit younger than the Sandaime Hokage, but he was tall and sturdy with shoulders that didn't roll forward, a belly that hadn't grown thick with beer, and hair that had perhaps once been a god-awful red that since dulled to gray that twinged orange. He crossed the room and there was no mistaking it in his movements.
Sakurada Jin was a shinobi.
"Kakashi," he greeted warmly. "Etsuko said you took out your IV?"
"Yes," he responded, still processing the fact that this surgeon was undoubtedly some form of medic nin. "I didn't need it."
"Of course you didn't," Jin agreed, pinching the exposed skin of his upper arms as if testing for dehydration. He left the confirmation of you'll do as I tell you regardless unsaid, sitting behind his desk squarely between Kakashi and the window. He rummaged through the scattered papers before him and handed Kakashi a crisp white envelope. "Here."
Tentatively, Kakashi opened it. It was the worst sort of envelope; self-sealing, which always meant that his fingers would be tacky after handling it. Further inspection of its contents revealed it to be a bill for services rendered, including the very drip that had poisoned him alongside their overnight stay and the surgery that had saved Asuma.
There were quite a lot of zeroes.
"This can't be right," Kakashi said helplessly, scanning the receipt again.
The surgeon sighed. "Times are hard, Kakashi-kun. A man has to provide for his family."
"Of course," Kakashi responded emptily.
"I'm aware it's a bit beyond your budget, given your situation..."
Understatement.
"...but something could be arranged."
Nothing good, he was certain. "What did you have in mind?"
Jin sized him up, "You able-bodied?"
"Sir," Kakashi replied, "if you haven't noticed, I'm down an eye and emaciated."
"I suppose it can't be helped," the surgeon sighed. "You could do with some rest and good meals, but my charity isn't free. I'm sure you understand that by now."
More and more each passing second. Kakashi fiddled with the envelope in his hand, picking at the sticky residue on the flap. He didn't trust this man any father than he could throw him, and he couldn't toss him very far even if he tried as he was still waiting on his frame to fill out since his last growth spurt. He repeated his question.
"What did you have in mind?"
"I asked you last night if you were someone's enemy," Sakurada said, "and you answered yes. I am also someone's enemy."
Kakashi blinked. "Okay. Do you want me to kill them for you or something?"
He didn't know what do do when the surgeon was suddenly clutching his belly in laughter. It was the logical conclusion; people always wanted their enemies dead. That was just the way of things.
"Aren't you an eager one?" he roared, wiping faintly at his eye.
Kakashi felt patronized. "Do you or don't you?"
"Yes and no, yes and no," the surgeon said. "We will discuss the missions I have a mind for you to carry out as the come. The less you know, the better."
Missions? The thought of taking on a mission from this man was ridiculous in every possible way. Kakashi was a jonin level shinobi of Konohagakure; he took orders from the Hokage and the Hokage alone. Then again, the fact that Hokage was a office which no longer existed was probably a significant game changer. He looked at the bill in his hand once more. All of this felt extremely premeditated, too perfectly coincidental to have been unplanned. As Kakashi could tell plainly that Sakurada was a ninja just from looking at him, he must have been able to see the truth about their little team.
"What should I do in the meantime?" he asked in resignation. There was nothing to do but play by the surgeons rules for now while crafting an escape for later. Minato-sensei said to make you captors think you were compliant, and that advice had already worked once. They could do it again.
"Gain some weight," he answered stiffly. "You'll be of no use to me if you're not healthy, and neither will your friends."
"Yes, sir."
"Your friend, Genma, was it? Who is he really?"
"Sarutobi Asuma," Kakashi answered, realizing that if he had a grandmother, he'd sell her out, too.
"Well damn," Sakurada remarked. "Hokage connections everywhere in your little disabled team... Don't tell me, don't tell me! Your other friend, the eyeless one. He was a doujutsu user, wasn't he? Worthless, all of them, cheating their way into success with their parasitic mirror eyes or else using them for spying on better men than they'll ever be."
Kakashi shrugged at the man's knowledge of Konoha's clans as dismissively as he could manage despite the panic they elicited deep in his bones. "I'm inclined to agree with you," he answered diplomatically, "but not about Obito. He's not worthless."
Jin narrowed his eyes slightly. "Seems to me a blind shinobi is the epitome of the word."
Well, couldn't argue that one. "True, which is why I want to ask that Obito be left out of our arrangement completely. I don't want him to even be told."
"Soft spot for him, eh?" he smiled. "I can agree to that. The less you know, the better."
He was repeating himself, Kakashi realized. Perhaps it would be easier to pull one over on this old fart of a ninja than previously thought.
"I'll send one of the twins to take you into town this afternoon," the surgeon continued. "I'm sure you all need spare clothes and supplies."
Such luxuries would certainly add on to their existing tab... not that it mattered since they were going to escape anyway. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"You're dismissed," the surgeon said. "And Kakashi?"
The gray haired boy was already on his way to the door when the surgeon called for him and froze at the sound of his name. Hand on the doorknob, Kakashi didn't turn around to face him. "Sir?"
"Please know that the Cloud has already been pushed back out of Konoha by insurgents," the old man said. The tone of his voice was softer now and against his better judgment, Kakashi turned about face to be confronted with a sallow and melancholy man.
"Who led them?" Kakashi asked, hollow voiced.
"Fellow named Orochimaru. You've heard of him?"
Kakashi swallowed hard, "Yes."
"I would not go back there, Kakashi," Jin said seriously.
"Thank you for the advice, sir."
And he was thankful, because that particular piece of advice was very, very solid.
By the end of the night, he would elect to ignore it.
"Well, fuck."
"Could be worse."
"How?"
Kakashi shrugged, picking at his new pajamas. Shopping with Etsuko had proven to be just as nightmarish as anticipated, but they had fresh clothes and supplies to their names now so it was worth it. He didn't actually have a mental scenario that was worse than what he had just explained to Asuma, though. What was more worrying than the fact their current benefactors would just as soon exploit and murder them as they would help them? That their services as mercenaries had been bought and paid for before they had even agreed to it? That they had no one in the world to come to their aid now?
And the thick flannel of his sleeping pants was itchy, too...
"You could have lost more fingers," Kakashi said at length.
Asuma kicked him in the shin. "Be serious, Kakashi."
"I am," he grumbled, rubbing his bruised shankbone. "We came here because you were dying, and you were dying because of the infection in your fingers, which were broken because you're an idiot. If you had let me amputate when I said..."
"I'd have just died from toxic shock, no big deal," Asuma finished for him, flapping a heavily bandaged hand at him dismissively. "Leave my poor hands out of this."
"You're just embarrassed because this is your fault," Kakashi said.
"Shut the hell up, Hatake."
He shut the hell up.
"So, what are we going to do?"
Kakashi shrugged. "What can we do?"
Asuma stared hard at his battered hands in his lap before he answered. "Nothing."
"Right," Kakashi agreed. "You and Obito both need time to heal before we do anything."
"So do you," Asuma pointed out. "You lost an eye, too, Kakashi."
"Only one," he said lightly. "I've got a spare."
"You're a freak."
Well, he wasn't wrong. Kakashi changed the subject.
"The surgeon says that Kumo was driven out of Konoha."
"Already?" Asuma asked, simultaneously suspicious and hopeful.
"Yeah... says Orochimaru did it."
Asuma leaned back in the window frame where they sat and sighed, long and loud. Kakashi didn't say anything as the full gravity of what that meant for them sunk in for the Sarutobi. It wasn't... good. But it wasn't necessarily bad, either. It was just very, very risky. Neither of them had much experience with any of the sannin and least of all with that team's resident dark horse, Orochimaru. What Kakashi knew about him was really only what he knew of him, and that was the fact he had been passed over by Sarutobi Hiruzen in favor of Minato-sensei as his successor, and there had to be a reason for that.
"We can't go back there," Asuma said. "No way."
Kakashi shrugged, "It's not like we've got anywhere else to go."
Asuma disagreed. There were other places they could go he said, "Places like Wave Country."
Kakashi was immediately skeptical, "There's nothing in Wave Country."
"Exactly," Asuma nodded emphatically. "That's why I'm certain it's where Kushina-san went."
Kushina? Kakashi wasn't convinced.
"But why would she go there..."
"Maybe if you had stayed in school longer than eight months, you'd remember your history lessons," Asuma chided. "There's nothing in Wave Country now, but Uzushio use to be there, dumbass."
"I do not remember that in history lessons," Kakashi said defensively.
"Well, it's was in there," Asuma said. "Or something. Kushina-san talked about it all the time when I was little and mom was training her. Mostly she threatened to run away there."
Kakashi fiddled with the latch of the window, "Why would she want to do a thing like that?"
"Because Kushina-san was from Uzushio," Asuma said thickly. "Use your brain."
"From Uzushio," Kakashi repeated, letting out the window. The cool night air prickled his skin. "And you think she went back there, to where there's no village at all to keep her safe?"
"You and I both know that Kushina-san doesn't need anyone to protect her," Asuma said. "And even if she did, a Hidden Village other than Konoha is out of the question."
"Because if the bijuu," Kakashi nodded. He felt foolish for not having realized it before, but Asuma seemed to know Kushina better than he did.
"Right," Asuma said. "Same reason Rin's probably with her, too, in Wave Country. They've gotta be hiding somewhere. We'd know if they were captured."
"Rin with Kushina?" Kakashi wondered aloud. It didn't seem totally impossible; the last time he had seen Rin prior to the invasion, the two women had been together, as they usually were. Rin was still a new jinchuuriki and when she wasn't accompanied by Kushina or their sensei themselves, she was constantly under the surveillance of ROOT. Considering that Minato-sensei was dead, it made since that Rin would be with one or the other of the remaining parties.
He hoped Asuma was right.
"So you're saying we should go to Wave?" Kakashi asked him finally. "That's your suggestion?"
"It's a better idea than taking our chances with Orochimaru," Asuma said. "My... my dad didn't trust him anymore, so I don't think we should, either."
A fair consideration. "I agree. The Sandaime was a great man. We should follow his judgment."
Asuma smiled halfishly, "Well, I don't know about great, but he was pretty cool. Not the worst dad ever."
"No, I guess he wasn't," Kakashi allowed, stretching.
A quiet hush fell over them and if Asuma wiped his eyes, Kakashi didn't notice. The Third Hokage was dead, too, having fallen in the invasion just like Minato and just like countless others of their superiors, their subordinates, and their friends. The loss surrounded them like a mantle on their shoulders and when Kakashi couldn't stand it any longer, he reached out and snapped the window shut. Asuma jumped.
"We should go to bed," Kakashi said. "We'll be spending the next few weeks resting and recovering, and the faster we do that, the sooner we can get ourselves out of here and into Wave Country."
"Right," Asuma said, slipping off the sill and heading towards the long room of beds. Kakashi followed closely.
"Remember not to let anything slip to Obito," Kakashi reminded him.
Asuma sighed wearily. "Right."
Obito had a lot of nightmares when they came back from Kiri. Kakashi did, too, but both of them suffered silently through whatever stress or trauma that plagued them in favor of a steely front of stability for Rin. Their nightmares were fleeting things, terrors that evaporated when they opened their eyes.
As the sanbi's jinchuuriki, Rin's would last a lifetime.
In the two weeks that followed their arrival at the Sakurada's hospital, Kakashi gained nearly seven kilograms and to look at him, one couldn't immediately spot the difference. He was a little less bony all over and he didn't feel an inch of frailty and so when the surgeon summoned him and outlined the first mission in his obligation, Kakashi took it without question. It was simple stuff, really; there was another village some six hours south where the surgeon's rival lived, a man called Nitta. Kakashi didn't actually care why the old coots were embroiled with one another. It didn't matter. He only had to follow the instructions he was given to the letter and make it back alive. Obito and Asuma weren't finished resting and healing. They needed more time.
Kakashi took the opportunity of a sunny afternoon to study his mission assignment outdoors and he settled outside of the clinic on a stone bench with the papers in his lap. It wasn't all that different from a Konoha missions scroll, except that everything was written on loose leaf paper and it didn't seem to be in any real order. The content was the same; coordinates, previously gathered intel. He pieced it together best he could and felt at ease with his objective. He was just the recon man, a fresh face needed to gather specs on the formation of Nitta's base. It was nothing Kakashi couldn't handle on his own.
"Grandpa, please, you have to go see Sakurada-sama. If you don't you'll die."
Kakashi rapidly shuffled his and shoved them in their manila envelope as a girl roughly his age came nearer with a disgruntled elderly man in tow. He recognized them vaguely as the pair he had seen when initially scoping out the clinic; the old man's oxygen tank had stuck out to him then as it did now.
"If my kidneys don't work, then they don't work!" the old man grouched. "It's not natural, I tell you! Not natural at all!"
Dialysis, he realized. The man was on dialysis, which Kakashi found completely mortifying since back home in Konoha, when someone's organs failed there were medics so skilled they could simply grow their patients a new one. What sort of barbarous place had they been exiled to?
"Grandpa," the girl said, totally exasperated as she pulled him through the doors of the clinic, smiling apologetically at Kakashi for the disturbance as she went.
Kakashi stayed very still on his stone bench after that, unwilling to go back inside where he could faintly hear the old man yelling and deal with him or his smiling granddaughter. He took his mission papers back out and continued to study despite having them already memorized. It was already late afternoon and the way Kakashi figured, it would be best to depart in the night and finish whatever reconnaissance was needed in the morning so that he could be back at the clinic the following night. He wasn't interested in leaving Obito and Asuma for much longer than that. Asuma's fingers were still too tender to wield weapons efficiently, although he had procured a set of kunai casted out of chakra-friendly metal a few days previously. As soon as Sarutobi's body caught up they were in business, but right now Kakashi was still very much on his own.
When he finally went inside, he made a beeline for the kitchens where he borrowed a few goodsized handfuls of dried red and black beans and stuffed them deep in his pockets. While he was there he also helped himself to a sticky sweet bun or three before heading back to the room he shared with Asuma and Obito. They had a fourth roommate now, a sickly little boy who required a breathing mask most nights and had to sleep sitting up, but they rarely saw him as his young mother kept the curtains drawn tight most of the day and the three shinobi were too respectful to pry. That or they just didn't care, either way.
Kakashi threw his mission envelope down on his bed and spoke around the last large bite of sweet bun he was still working on, "Where's Obito?"
"He got Etsuko to take him out again," Asuma shrugged, carefully turning the page of what looked like a medical textbook with the exposed nail of one of his better fingers. He gestured widely at Kakashi's manila folder. "What's that?"
"Orders," Kakashi said vaguely, nodding towards the closed curtains and alluding that he couldn't really say more while the boy and his mother occupied their room.
"Ah," Asuma said disinterestedly. "Have fun with that."
"Thanks," he replied, rooting around the draw of his bedside table and coming up with a few empty leather and canvas drawstring pouches. He bought them weeks ago when shopping with Etsuko in anticipation of such rudimentary ninja work being assigned to him, and he laid them out on the bed methodically. There were six bags in total and he filled them with the black and red beans from his pockets, twenty in the first, then twenty five, thirty. He tossed the extras out the window and packed the little pouches in his rucksack among the bare minimum of other tools that he felt certain he wouldn't actually need. At first he didn't bother with weapons; his greatest defense was his own chakra when gathered in his palm, electric and singing like wild birds.
But then he remembered that he no longer had Obito's Sharingan to complete the jutsu and he sighed, laying out a pair of kunai on the bedside table. He would have to conceal them on his person; strapping them to his thigh would be to announce his intent and he needed to get as close as possible to the known base without attracting any sort of attention. Just having a fresh face wasn't that much of a cover in Kakashi's case; he looked too unusual from just his hair alone. He couldn't also be carrying open weaponry. When everything was laid out and in order, Kakashi draped himself across his bed and crossed his arms. If he was leaving in the middle of the night then it was best to rest now, and within minutes he was asleep.
It lasted all of two hours until Obito got back, at which point all opportunity for rest fled until after they had eaten their dinner and gone to bed. Kakashi laid awake, waiting until his teammates' even snores covered the faint rasp of the little boy's breathing machine to get moving, quietly slipping on his sandals and pulling on his gear. He was just shrugging on his vest when a croaky voice called out to him, annihilating the silence he tried so hard to preserve.
"Kakashi? Is that you?"
He bit his tongue. "What is it, Obito?"
"Kakashi, I can't see."
"Me, either. It's dark."
"No. I mean, I can't see. I'm blind, Kakashi."
There was something different in the way he said it this time that alerted Kakashi that this wasn't some poor joke unfit for late night television, and he stiffened with hesitation as he fumbled with his shoulder straps. "Okay? It's not a problem, Obito," he said in his best show of optimism. "You'll adjust..."
"It's not enough," Obito groaned. "How am I ever going to help Rin like this? At least we have each other... wherever she is, she's alone."
Kakashi froze. Rin? What brought this on, and now of all times, as he was preparing to leave on a mission? There wasn't time for this.
"We'll find her," Kakashi told him. "And who knows, she might not even be alone at all..."
Inconsolable with words alone, Obito ignored him. "But I can't see Kakashi! How can I –"
"I'll be your eye," Kakashi interrupted, echoing his teammate's own words.
He left before Obito could respond.
Kakashi made quick work of his mission after managing a brisk pace to Nitta's compound that only left him slightly out of breath. The abuse of his body endured after capture coupled with two weeks of sitting on his can had left him a touch out of shape; he would have to remedy that – both in himself and surely as it existed in Asuma and Obito – before they made their escape. As for his actual mission objective, it took all of two hours to gather the necessary information. Nitta's men weren't very open, but a pair of homely girls he befriended on the edge of the compound that were sunning themselves were.
He stuffed the pouches of beans into his pockets and left his bag high in a birch tree before approaching them and as luck would have it, they were Nitta's granddaughters. Kakashi found he liked them infinitely more than Etsuko and her twin. They were easy to lie to and they accepted it without question when he said his name was Raidou and he was visiting his grandmother in the village. The younger one blushed every time he so much as looked at her and they were both a bit dense, so he bit the bullet and flirted his way around an interrogation as best he could.
Those were some scary men over there. Yes, grandfather has sixty shinobi at his disposal.
Shinobi? Where from? Aren't those expensive? Normally, but these shinobi have no home.
Surely they came from somewhere? They came from across the water a long time ago.
Kakashi didn't know what to say then. For a moment he thought perhaps he had stumbled upon a pocket of hired muscle coming out of Konoha's ruins, and the disappointment that it wasn't so wasn't curbed at all by the realization that he had stumbled upon Uzushio's remnants instead. The girls kept chattering and when he suggested they go on a walk to stretch their legs after the delicious picnic he had wheedled them into sharing, he counted the compound's gates and various murder holes and volley towers, flicking beans out of individual pouches as he went. This was in case he forgot any of the numbers; he could always count the remaining beans and subtract what was missing to find it again.
"Come and have dinner with us," the younger of the girls implored, pulling on Kakashi's arm. "My grandfather is a very hospitable man."
Her sister nodded emphatically, "Yes, please stay, Raidou-san."
Kakashi weighed his options, glancing between the two girls and at the large compound he had seen every inch of from the outside, but not a glance of from within. His mission was completed; there was no reason for him to carry further risk onto himself by entering into Nitta's domain, no matter how sweetly the opportunity presented itself. He was under no contractual obligation and without a sense of duty bound honor, he declined.
"I'm afraid I can't," he answered, looking adequately forlorn as he fell back on his previous lies. "My grandmother will be looking for me."
"Oh," the younger sister frowned. "Well, if you're staying very long, please come and visit us!"
Her sister jabbed her in the side fiercely before turning to Kakashi and trying to appear demure. "Travel safely, Raidou-san," she said. "There are wild men north of here affiliated with the Sakurada, and you must not tangle with them! They're the reason why our grandpa built our walls so high."
Well, wasn't this a development; he was being warned against himself.
"The Sakurada?" he asked, making sure the word sounded foreign on his tongue. "Who?"
"Their patriarch and ours both came from across the water," the older girl said, "but they are different. The Sakurada fled when their village saw the first signs of trouble; we stayed until the very end. The Sakurada have no honor."
"Then I'll do my best to stay away," Kakashi promised her, and really, it wasn't a lie.
They accepted him at his word and he left in the direction of the village dominated by the Nitta, using a well executed shunshin to return to his pack the moment he was out of their line of sight. He climbed the thin birch with chakra-sticky feet to grabbed his pack and immediately set course north, precisely in the direction he had promised not to stray. Such was the nature of these sort of missions.
They made a liar out of everyone.
Though in this particular situation, he supposed no one was a bigger liar than Sakurada Jin, who according to Lord Nitta's granddaughters was apparently a deserter of Uzushio. Incredible. Kakashi would have to do some fact checking against Asuma's superior historical knowledge when he arrived back at the clinic. At that moment he had a six hour journey to focus on instead and already his feet felt heavy, and he was absolutely certain when he reported back to Jin that the Nitta girls – Hinano and Miori were their names, respective to age – had taken a shine to him that the surgeon would send him right back and he would be under a contractual obligation to go inside of the compound. Vaguely Kakashi thought, huffing and ploding along, he didn't mind the practice.
I was young and naïve, as I was told so I believed
I was told there's only one road that leads you home
The Nidaime's nose was missing.
He looked a lot better than Minato-sensei, who had been blown off the mountain entirely.
"Keep moving."
"...Right."
Kakashi tore his gaze from the broken monument he would never see again. All in all, Kumo had proven to be a very fair conqueror. He had received five meals in twice as many days and with any luck, he would only suffer minor nerve damage from the tightness of the bindings on his wrists. They had also been so very kind as to let an actual medic remove his Sharingan eye and heal up the empty socket in lieu of simply gouging it out. That probably had more to do with the fact it had since been transplanted into one of Kumogakure's own shinobi and less to do with being nice to Kakashi, but he would take it. Kakashi wasn't one to question small mercies when they were extended to him.
"How many of them are there, Kakashi?"
"With us? Eight," he answered smoothly. They had plucked Obito's remaining eye from him, too, and placed it into a shinobi named Darui alongside the Sharingan they took from Kakashi. Rendered blind, Obito had been asking for the play by play ever since. That was three days ago. Obito still wasn't used to the change and walked far too close for comfort, but Kakashi allowed it. He had imagined the isolation Obito was feeling, the apprehension of being frog marched out of the village by unknown jailers into a world he couldn't even see, and he would happily endure a little invasion of personal space for Obito's sake.
"Damn. I guess we're not getting away?"
The squadron of Cloud ninja guarding them seemed thoroughly disinterested in their subdued and disabled charges. Kakashi swallowed hard. "Highly unlikely."
They passed through the village gates and were checked by the sentries there. Among the prisoners Kakashi and Obito were being transported with were a jonin that Kakashi didn't know very well and a chuunin who if Kakashi knew anything about him at all, it was that he was probably experiencing nicotine withdraw. Sarutobi Asuma looked absolutely pitiful and judging by his mangled and broken hands, he wouldn't be performing any jutsu for a very long time. Maybe not ever. Kakashi was suddenly grateful that his own fingers were simply bound beyond movement behind his back.
Small mercies, he thought again.
The sentries checked them off a list and their convoy moved onward at a brisk pace. Beside him Obito shuffled awkwardly, as if he wasn't sure what to do with his feet. He stumbled a few times and talked ceaselessly, or at least he did until one of their burlier guards boxed his ears and told him to shut the hell up. Obito shut it and shifted closer to Kakashi just as the tell-tale sound of an explosion filled the air. Obito stiffened and paused. They were scarcely 200 meters from Konoha and as he turned around, Kakashi had the suspicion that they were the last group of prisoners sent out. The fact that Konoha seemed to be on fire when he looked back verified it.
"What's going on?" Obito asked him. The Uchiha's voice shook.
Kakashi wasn't sure how to describe it or what to say. "Nothing, Obito. Just keep walking."
While Kakashi had always been aware of the animosity between Konoha and Kumo, he hadn't known that the Cloud's hatred ran quite so deep. The Third Secret War was over; it had been for almost two years, and those years had been damn good ones. Obito had come back home after some miraculous, improbable survival with half his body replaced by something not quite made of human flesh. Ever dramatic, he hadn't returned until the very moment he was most needed – right before Rin sacrificed herself to save the village from Kiri's attempt at decimating Konoha. It failed and Obito had helped Kakashi defend Rin from the Mist nin who pursued them until Minato-sensei himself was able to come to their aid and repair the faulty sealing Kiri performed on the three tailed bijuu. After that they all went home as a complete team and the war officially ended a few weeks later.
He didn't know where Rin was now. He assumed she was alive – successful jinchuuriki were hard to come by, and their sensei's seal meant she was very valuable. As for Minato, Kakashi knew for a fact that the Fourth Hokage was dead. Just because the Third Secret War had closed didn't mean that Kumo demilitarized and while Konoha spent the time collectively licking her wounds, Kumo launched a quiet, covert campaign to destroy them. The Raikage despised Minato, though Kakashi was still pretty baffled as to exactly why. As a leader in the same precarious position A understood that it only took one well planned and well executed assassination attempt to bring down anyone, kages included.
That was precisely what Kumo had done.
Crucially, they had given themselves away at the very last moment. It hadn't been enough for Minato-sensei to escape with his life, but it had been enough for Kushina and his son to escape with theirs. Naruto and his mother were long gone by the time the rest of Konoha even knew what was happening, before the first fires were set and the majority of the jonin and chuunin ranks slaughtered. Young shinobi with kekkei genkai were spared and spirited away for the purpose of integration while their mothers and fathers were butchered. Shinobi without bloodline limits were just fodder. A few like himself were taken as prisoners because Kumo wanted their secrets, but as a whole Kakashi was forced to accept the very real fact that almost everyone he had ever known was dead.
He didn't even feel sad about it. He just felt... empty.
Kakashi was fairly certain that the only reason he and Obito were still alive was because of their ties to the Fourth. They had made a little name for themselves in the latter weeks of the Third Secret War, a pair of boys with just three eyes between the two of them. The Sharingan was stronger in a pair, which also accounted for why theirs had been simultaneously harvested. The only thing either of them really had to offer now were secrets and knowledge. He supposed Obito did have a bloodline, but he was such a knucklehead that he would never comply and be subjugated to Kumo, so it was useless. Besides, they had already captured enough young and fully impressionable Uchiha. They didn't need Obito.
They didn't need Kakashi. Or Asuma. Or that jonin Senju.
Unless this was all, as he truly thought it must have to be, about Minato-sensei and the past Hokage. They were going to be disappointed if they thought either he or Obito held the key to any of their sensei's techniques. The most they knew about hiraishin was throw kunai, sensei appears. End of theory. They also didn't know how to open the scrolls that had undoubtedly been pilfered from the vaults beneath the Hokage's residency, so the way Kakashi figured it they were as good as dead. The only person he knew who could break the seals was Uzumaki Kushina and she was gone, gone, gone.
They walked for a very long time. Kakashi was normally capable of telling how far he'd gone and was a very good keeper of his paces, but he was out of sorts. Before the sun had even climbed halfway up the empty blue sky he had lost all track of their distance and only registered that they were heading vaguely North. He was hungry, but not quite starving. He would reserve that level of desperate thinking for when he was actually in danger of starvation, which very well might be the case before it was all said and done. Obito was faring worse. The bandages over his right eye didn't look very clean and Kakashi was positive that they needed to be swapped. He wondered then if his own eye was in need of care and immediately after the thought entered his head, he had the urge to tear and claw at his injury. When the road they traversed gave way from wide cobbles to rutted lane, Kakashi knew they had left Konoha's prefecture.
"Steady, Obito," Kakashi said just as his teammate stumbled forward and fell.
If he had eyes, he would have rolled them. "Thanks, Kakashi."
To his credit, Obito got up quickly and without aid, heeding Kakashi's poorly timed advice and walking at a slightly slower pace. Kakashi kept thinking about how difficult it was to walk around his own apartment at midnight without stubbing a toe on the coffee table. How Obito was even functioning was beyond him.
"Stop here," one of their guards said. Kakashi stopped. The guard, a tall black man with blond hair and a very menacing facial tattoo, gestured at his subordinates. "We'll break for the next hour. Water them."
Instantly, Kakashi was wary. They could slip anything into his water, anything they wished. But he couldn't refuse, and he needed fluids. As if sensing his apprehension, the only kunoichi in their squadron approached him and Obito, unscrewing a canteen from her own pack. He supposed the action was meant to make him feel more trusting, but all it did was further raise his suspicions.
"I promise not to hurt you," she said, pulling down his mask gently and raising the canteen to his lips. Kakashi doubted her on the principle that a shinobi's promises were worthless as dirt. He drank anyway. "I'm H."
"Kakashi," he bristled.
H smiled and slipped his mask back over his nose, "I know."
She turned to Obito, who was sitting down and having a rest and squatted to let him drink, too. Unlike Kakashi, Obito trusted her without falter, taking three or four large gulps of water and introducing himself obnoxiously. Did he really have no idea how to handle a catch-22?
"I'm Obito," he told her enthusiastically.
She laughed at him. "I'm H," she said again.
"You sound hot."
Kakashi nearly groaned. Idiot.
But H didn't seem to think so. She actually blushed, which left Kakashi utterly bewildered but what could he say? Girls were a mystery that would never be solved. It would be foolish to think foreign kunoichi were any different. If he were pressed into guessing, he would bet that in all likelihood it was probably because not many people ever complimented H. She was decidedly homely he thought, squinting his eye at her. Her hair was orange and her skin mottled and blowzy, and her eyes were the an ugly shade that reminded him of bean paste, but they looked at Obito softly.
"Let's have a look at your bandages," she said warmly. Kakashi understood now why she had been the one to approach them. She was the medic of the group.
"Uhm," Kakashi interrupted, nodding to where Sarutobi was sitting in the middle of the road nearly in tears examining his wrecked hands. No one was coming to his aid. "No offense, but don't you think you should be checking on him..?"
H's expression fell a little as she glanced up at Kakashi, her fingers plucking at Obito's bandage. "I've only been assigned to take care of you and him."
A lump rose in his throat. "I... I really think you should help Asuma."
H was pulling fresh gauze from her hip pouch for Obito. "I'll talk to Tarui and see what I can do. Sit down so I can refresh your bandages, too."
Kakashi sat, tuning Obito and H out and instead focusing on the other ninja milling and sunning themselves in their break. Now was the time to probe them for potential weaknesses. The closer they got to Cloud, the sloppier their jailers would get. Or at least that was what Kakashi was counting on. Of the eight shinobi guarding them, only three looked like a viable threat. The most prominent was the man identified now as Tarui, the captain who had ordered their rest. He looked mean and cautious and Kakashi didn't like him or the twin blades strapped to his back one bit. The other two were a pair that looked like twins, bald and muscular, but as Kakashi witnessed them having a fight over who would eat their last packet of soft jelly candies and fail to keep track of who had won two out of three bouts of rock-paper-scissiors a total of six times, he decided they were incredibly stupid. No threat.
"Alright, now let's look at you," H said, kneeling before him. She removed the bandage from Kakashi's eye and tsked lightly, applying a touch of cool chakra to the wound before dressing it again. The Kumo nin were not nearly as talented at medical ninjutsu as their Konoha contemporaries and though Kakashi knew for a fact (and from experience, unfortunately) that Rin could have patched him up in minutes, healing the delicate tissues of the eye was beyond H's abilities.
"There," she said with a lopsided smile. "All done."
Kakashi didn't return it. "Take care of him," he said, nodding fiercely at Asuma again.
H promised that she would try. Four days later when Kakashi couldn't sleep because of Asuma's wailing, he knew that she had lied.
When Kakashi was a genin, Minato-sensei told their team very bluntly that their eventual capture was inevitable and gave careful instructions of what they should do. It was very bleak.
"Don't do anything for the first forty eight hours. Assume you will be rescued, and use the time to make them think you are compliant and plan your potential escape. Once the first forty eight pass, assume you are on your own and put your plan into action. If it fails or you are recaptured, you have two options left. Try again, or ensure that you destroy your secrets before death."
He then bequeathed them a suicide jutsu with the solemn declaration, "I suggest you use it."
It was hard to be certain when they crossed into Lightning Country. Tarui and his subordinates weren't exactly tour guides and they flew though the minor lands between Fire and Lightning and breakneck speed. Kakashi only realized something was different when his ears began to pop. They were still in the lowlands and hollers, where the foliage and other flora didn't look too different from his homeland, but were beginning to give way to the thin pines and flaky birch characteristic of Lightning Country. They also started staying at inns in Lightning, opening the first of the opportunities for which Kakashi had been waiting. He and Obito were separated, Obito being kept on one end of the hall with the Senju Hayate and Kakashi being kept with Asuma on the other. As luck would have it, he and Sarutobi were guarded by the idiot twins, H, and a spindly legged shinobi that Kakashi hadn't heard speak more than three words. They were seated against the far wall and when one of the idiots took watch of them while the other three slept he nudged Asuma with his shoulder until the Sarutobi raised his head to glare at him blearily.
Asuma looked like shit. It was unclear to Kakashi exactly what Asuma had done to piss off Tarui so spectacularly, but the order that kept H from healing him still stood and it was taking its toll. He looked thinner and Kakashi knew that he wasn't eating. Asuma's hands weren't bound as Kakashi's, Obito's, or Hayate's because they didn't need to be – Asuma couldn't move them regardless. At least eight of his ten fingers were broken and while he had clearly tried to set them and not jostle, they were all awkward and unnatural angles and looking at them made Kakashi's stomach knot. He had seen a lot of grisly things in his lifetime but the state of Asuma's fingers and the way they were turning purple and green with infection took the cake. If Asuma didn't see a decent medic or doctor soon, the digits were going to have to go if they didn't require amputation already.
The gaunt face of his comrade was startling. "Asuma..."
"Kakashi, you know we aren't supposed to talk," he hissed quietly.
"Doesn't matter," he said. The idiot watching them was dozing. "Asuma, I'm going to turn my back to you. I want you to lift your hands and gather your chakra. You won't have to perform a seal, just release wind chakra and cut the bonds."
Asuma sputtered. "Kakashi I can't, I can't move or gather chakra, I..."
"Try not to slit my wrists~"
"Kakashi."
"I need you to do it," Kakashi said evenly. And he really did; Asuma had a wind affinity while Kakashi's was lightning. He had never used wind-type chakra and couldn't cut the thick nylon straps that bound him; he needed Asuma for that. But Asuma faltered and the door of the room opened quietly as Tarui came to check up on things, and Kakashi swiftly turned his back to the wall again just in time to match his pose to the assurance that their guard was giving his commander that the two of them had been sitting still and behaving the entire time. Tarui eyed him surreptitiously but said nothing.
The next day as they marched deeper into Lightning Country, he caught Asuma covertly trying to channel his chakra and smirked beneath his mask. When they stopped at midday and Asuma gave him an almost imperceptible nod, he outright grinned. The change in his demeanor didn't go unnoticed by H, who was sitting near Obito and now staring at him oddly. Calmly, he ignored her gaze and turned his back towards her. He wondered then if he'd already drawn too much attention to himself and foiled whatever half baked plan he intended to execute, but he threw the thought from his mind. Kakashi had no intention whatsoever of using the suicide jutsu Minato-sensei had given him – he had to try. At fifteen years old he had known plenty of shinobi who died younger, but Kakashi himself wasn't quite ready yet to give up the ghost.
When they finished their break, he fell into step beside Obito, who promptly accused him of being up to something in a hushed whisper. Kakashi told him to shut his ugly mug, but the Uchiha was insistant.
"I want in," he said defiantly.
"Fine," Kakashi acquiesced but truly, he had no idea how Obito would be any help. "Just please shut up. You've got to keep it quiet..."
Obito sealed his lips and Kakashi was thankful to be left with his thoughts. Hopefully that night Tarui would split him back up with Sarutobi. It seemed the plausible thing to do; he spent most of his daylight hours with Obito glued to his hip, brushing shoulders and yabbering to orient himself to the sound of Kakashi's terse replies. Kakashi had heard rumors about the blind cultivating superior reflexes and senses to make up for their handicap but Obito obviously had a long time to go before he would reach any sort of prowess in that department. Simple things like rocks and potholes were enough to take him out in his current state. What use would he ever be in a fight?
The gist of it in the end was that Obito wasn't any use in a fight. He was a monumental set back when Kakashi's plan was finally put into play two nights later. If it wasn't for the fact that Senju Hayate could have carried ten men on his back without flinching, Kakashi was ashamed to admit that they would have had to leave him behind. What was worse than that was that before they had gotten twenty kilometers away from their captors, Senju's clone dissipated. He didn't even want to think about how long they had been traveling with it, and it left a foul taste in his mouth that the other jonin had simply abandoned them. But then again he had been all but ready to leave Obito the moment things looked grim...
But he hadn't and they were all together, he and Obito and Asuma, in rural Lightning Country with Konoha hitai-ate in their back pockets and in dire need of medical attention. Asuma had a fever and while Kakashi was far from considering himself a doctor, he knew that if it didn't break soon he was going to be in trouble. He was also very suspect that his friend was developing gaseous gangrene around the knuckles of his right middle and ring fingers. They would have to go now, he was sure of it. Kakashi himself could probably use some stitches, or at the very least some butterfly bandages. Asuma had no amount of control over his chakra and when he cut Kakashi's bonds he also sliced through the skin of his wrists. There had been blood, a great deal of it, but no major arteries were let. He lost more blood in the ensuing fight with the idiot twins and when he moved too fast or changed directions too suddenly, he felt dizzy. The fact that he could feel Obito tugging on him at every turn was also disorienting, but it couldn't be helped. The Uchiha had grabbed him by the shirttail and hadn't let go for miles.
"We've got to stop," Asuma panted, leaning against a gnarled tree on his elbow. As if to punctuate his need, he vomited.
Obito tugged at Kakashi. "Is he alright?"
Kakashi cringed a little, "He will be. Asuma, we need to do something about your hands."
Asuma reeled back. "They're getting better," he insisted. He knew what Kakashi had in mind.
Kakashi looked at the stolen kunai in his hand, wondering how best to sterilize it.
"Kakashi."
"We'll head back to towards Fire Country," Kakashi said at length, "and we'll find you a doctor as soon as we can. But if it gets worse..."
"I know," Asuma said grimly. They had all been educated in the Academy about various field maladies, and they both knew the ins and out of infection and how it was to be dealt with in the absence of a medic. It was barbarous, but it was life saving. He hoped Asuma wouldn't scream too much.
"We at least need to properly set them."
Asuma looked well and truly alarmed at the prospect, but not nearly as alarmed as Obito who had no idea what was happening when Asuma began to yelp and scream and holler like a wounded animal. Darkly, Kakashi supposed that was exactly what he was. He felt the pieces of bone and set them the best he could, splinting them with sticks and wrapping them tightly with a surplus of gauze from the hip pouch he stole off of H's body. It was probably wasn't the most sanitary thing ever done, but Asuma didn't have many open wounds on his hands. He would probably be fine. Kakashi spared a glance at Asuma's pallored face, as if he could some how glean a more clear diagnosis from just looking at him. Sarutobi vomited again but it was nothing but bile.
Kakashi really wished Rin was with them right about then. He adjusted his gauntlets and pulled off one of his nylon-elastane sleeves, tying it around his head like he would his hitai-ate to cover his exposed and empty socket. He couldn't pull out his actual Konoha headband – it would be the same as painting a target on his head.
"The hell's wrong with him?" Obito asked nervously. If Obito were a cat, he would've been completely bottle tailed and back arched.
"Nothing, Obito," Kakashi said, brushing past him. "We need to get moving."
Obito snatched his arm. "I'm blind, Kakashi. Not daft, not dumb. What's wrong with Sarutobi?"
Kakashi shared a significant look with Asuma, who was pulling himself together. "I'm fine, Obito," he said laboriously. "Kakashi's right. We've gotta keep moving."
Lying to Obito wasn't preferable, but Kakashi knew his teammate well enough to know that he would never consent to keep going if he knew the extent of Asuma's ailment. He had this nobility hang up, and Obito would demand that they find the nearest village large enough to harbor a doctor and seek help there. He would demand it loudly and extensively then by the time they finally convinced him that the best thing they could do is get the hell out of dodge and worry about Asuma in Frost or so, it would too late and Tarui would recapture them. The thought of recapture filled his heart with dread and his ears with Minato-sensei's voice.
I suggest you use it.
Kakashi rooted through H's pouch again, looking for any sort of medicine that would help Asuma. Killing H had also not been preferable but when she willingly offered to go with them, Kakashi made no bones of cutting her jugular. She would have betrayed them or sabotaged them in some way, he knew it. The medic had put up an incredible fight and his jaw was numb where her repeated punches landed and her sudden change of heart mid fight couldn't have been anything but treacherous. They couldn't have taken her, but they also couldn't leave her behind with Tarui's crew. Killing the medic was the best way to ensure the crippled squad wouldn't pursue. Tarui would have to think twice about chasing them down when they had killed half his men and he had no means of medical support to sponsor further action. Of course, Tarui was also calculating this based off of Hayate being with them as the biggest threat. That clone had murdered three of the Cloud nin on its own before ferrying Obito to safety. If Kakashi wasn't so pissed at him for abandoning them at some indeterminate point in the past, he could have kissed Senju's toes. Pale and pasty as that old crust had been, there was no doubt who had been their real savior and it had very little to do with Kakashi's stupid plan. All Kakashi had gotten them were some nice lacerations on their wrists and now, probably a little lost.
If he ever saw Senju Hayate again he would have to thank the jonin... and maybe punch him, too.
There wasn't very much of consequence in H's pouch. He had used most of the gauze and bandages on Asuma's splints and everything else was mostly useless. A few packets of anti-bacterial wipes and a half empty tube of antiseptic ointment... he took a dab of it and applied it to his wrists, then lifted a small jar of pills and poured them into his palm. Their purpose was questionable. What if they were anti-inflammatory? What if they were poisonous? Should he give one to Asuma anyway?
"Hey, Sarutobi, take this pill."
Asuma picked a tablet from Kakashi's palm without qualm. "I don't have anything to take it with..."
Kakashi stared at him stupidly. "Do you want me to spit in your mouth?"
Asuma dry swallowed. Kakashi returned to rooting around the pouch. The only other item of consequence was a little vial of brown fluid. Everything else was really and truly useless – a tin of mints, a tub of lip gloss, and a few tampons. Kunoichi. Kakashi strapped the pouch to his hip.
"Alright, let's get going. We need to put some more distance between us and Tarui."
Again Obito held him tightly when they began to move. Whatever pill Asuma had taken proved not to be poisonous and in fact it broke his fever and brought down the swelling in his hands, so roughly eight hours later Kakashi re-administered it. By the time they had legged it back to the borderlands of Lightning Country and before the sun rose, Kakashi had led them out of it and into the Land of Frost. It was mid summer and the weather was mild, but their trek was still difficult and hard and when they came to the first safe village, all three of them were entirely too skinny from their starvation diet under Tarui and subsequent fast while attempting to live off the meager fat of the land. Asuma was holding his own against the fact that two of his fingers were putrefying and literally rotting off the bone, but they had run out of little white pills and he was too scared to drink the amber liquid in the vial. He kept trying to get Asuma to allow him to cut them off, but it was a no-go. The flesh would flee until all that remained were twiggy chunks of bone and skin and at that point they would be able to just snap them clean off. Kakashi still didn't want to stop and give Tarui the chance to catch up, but he thought that perhaps in a more clinical setting – with the promise of pain killers – Asuma might be more inclined to be separated from his festering digits. They couldn't keep ignoring the problem any longer – the fever was back.
"Stay here with Obito," he told Asuma when they were within a hundred meters of the village. "I'll be back after I scope it out."
Neither Asuma nor Obito questioned him. Their ranks were officially meaningless since the were essentially rogue nin now, shinobi with no village or allegiance, but deferring to Kakashi as leader still felt natural and safe. He was also the only one of the three in remotely operational order, so when he slipped into the throngs of people milling about the village market square it was only a matter of minutes before he had picked himself a considerable pocketful of change. As a rule Kakashi didn't steal unless ordered to do so, but the hunger pains in his belly were just as valid an authority as any Hokage had ever been. When he jingled as he walked Kakashi decided he had enough and searched for the safest looking stall to purchase some real food. After he had traded a handful of coins for three bentos and ample amounts of fresh bean buns that the appetite of his eyes insisted upon he sought the village's medical facilities. There was no hospital to speak of, but there was a small clinic that seemed to be based out of someone's house. Unsafe. Kakashi nibbled on a bun and gazed at it balefully. Most of the patients seemed to be expectant mothers. Was this a lady doctor? No, it couldn't have been because there was a very loud old man with an oxygen tank being dragged inside by a girl roughly Kakashi's age who must have been his granddaughter. He lolled about for a few more minutes pretending that he was staking it out, but in reality he was entirely too focused on his bean bun to take in much of anything.
In truth, the little clinic was probably the best they would find in this part of the world. The smaller lands between the great ones were backward at best; they weren't likely to find a fully fledged hospital outside of a hidden village, and none of those were going to let them inside its gates on friendly terms. Kakashi was no stranger to politics. Konoha was hated, or at least it had been hated. Were people happy it was destroyed? Kakashi wasn't. How could anyone be happy with the complete decimation of homes, where families lived? Where there were children? He wouldn't wish that on anybody. Not even Iwa. Not even Kumo. What could possibly have made Konoha so bad? Were the other villages just sore losers? –
Had Konoha been a cruel victor?
Kakashi didn't know the answer. He had always thought that Konoha handled itself fairly and benevolently, but perhaps he had been wrong. People didn't usually raze villages to the ground for no reason, he thought, nose buried in his bean bun. He decided to ignore the issue by reminding himself that there were two hungry and needy friends waiting a hundred meters out by a tree. The clinic had checked out, anyway. Pregnant women and angry old men wouldn't harm them. Probably. Kushina had been pretty vicious before Naruto was born...
He found Obito and Asuma precisely where he left them and the former assured him that they hadn't seen another soul since he left when Kakashi asked. Kakashi kicked him and told him not to be an ass. Normally, someone probably would have berated him for attacking the disabled. Since Obito was laughing both his head and his keister off at his own cleverness though, he assumed any morality police had they been present would have to have let it slide. Asuma certainly didn't care; he was eyeballing the food. Deciding there was no reason for withholding it any longer, Kakashi sat down with them and the three partook of their first true meal since the invasion of Konoha. It wasn't very pretty. Asuma couldn't operate his chopsticks and refused to be helped when Obito offered on the principle of 'he didn't want rice up his nose,' to which Kakashi offered his whole-hearted agreement. He suspected it was just pride though when Asuma turned down his own offer to help, too. Yes, he supposed it was much more dignified to clamp the dish between your wrists and dump its contents down your throat. Sarutobi handled his portion of the bean buns with significantly more grace.
When they finished eating they all felt like stuck pigs, miserable and fat and stuffed. Moving around brought bouts of nausea that probably had a thing to do with eating so richly and plentifully after the crash starvation diet to which they had been subjected. Kakashi certainly knew that he had eaten much more with far less bodily stress in the past, but now all he really fancied as a nap. Perhaps it was just all the hard travel he had endured catching up with him? Either way, no one felt like getting up and walking into the village, not even to get a room at an inn. Kakashi counted the spoils of his pilfering and discovered they had adequate funds for what would probably be the worst lodging experience of their short lives sleeping three to a flea ridden bed. Or maybe they could just go to the clinic and hope they were pitiful enough to be housed in that medical haven overnight? Kakashi hated hospitals, but he wouldn't mind even the most stiff plastic sheeted bed if it meant sleeping indoors. Mid summer in Frost was still quite cold once the sun went down.
"We need to go into town," Kakashi said lethargically. He might pop.
Obito groaned, "Don't wanna."
"Asuma needs a doctor," Kakashi reminded them.
Grudgingly, they all got to their feet. They didn't have much of anything to gather because they hadn't much of anything in the world. Just a few plastic bottles full of clean-ish river water. They probably all needed deworming, but it couldn't be helped. None of them had a jutsu suitable for water purification and it was better to get a few live-ins than it was to die of thirst. Being that none of them were particularly environmentally friendly, they left their rubbish there under the tree.
The three of them together garnered more attention in the village than Kakashi had alone. He supposed they did look a bit garish and not a little frightening. One of Obito's empty eye sockets was exposed and everyone who noticed seemed to leap from their path. Kakashi thought that was pretty stupid. If someone's eyes were literally missing they probably weren't a very good fighter... hardly a threat. Sure, Obito had given up one of those eyes semi-voluntarily (what good were your organs when half your body was jelly, anyway?), but the fact still remained. Until the day Obito developed an echolocation ability he was rent useless. All he was doing was drawing unnecessary attention to them and any attention at all was unwanted. They would have to get him a bandana or something Kakashi thought as they turned the corner onto the street of the clinic. Asuma began to panic once the building was in sight, glancing up and down the narrow lanes as if he could somehow escape what both he and Kakashi had known for days was inevitable. Asuma had been in decent shape during the days H's pills had broken his fever, but he wasn't really any better. He still looked ghastly and ill, and his face lacked color. It wasn't the look of a man quite at death's door, but he was definitely passed the garden gate and halfway down the walk. Kakashi thought about reaching out to him, maybe placing a hand on his shoulder and trying to offer some kind of reassurance that it was going to be alright. Then he thought better of it. Asuma was a shinobi; he wouldn't like to be thought of as weak.
Kakashi kept his hands to himself.
During their first rest after breaking free from Tarui's squad, while he was splinting Asuma's fingers, Kakashi finally broke down and asked. Why had Tarui mutilated him? Why didn't he allow him to be healed? When the chuunin didn't respond for a moment he thought Asuma was ignoring him.
Then he thought Asuma was dead.
"I flicked a cigarette at him," the Sarutobi finally answered.
"Oh."
Asuma was an idiot.
"Good gracious alive, don't you three look like you were rode hard and put up wet!"
Kakashi decided the elderly nurse in the clinic was a horrible woman.
"Displaced little urchins aren't you? Are you from Fire Country? Never mind that, I'm sure you're trying to forget it. The people have been pouring out of that hellhole. I didn't know your kind had come this far North yet. Would you like a butterscotch while you wait? Oh – oh you said he's got an infection? Let's have a look then."
Asuma held up his hands and was immediately bombarded by nurses from triage and whisked away so fast Kakashi wondered if they should be worried. The nurse who had previously been friendly retracted her bowl of candies and looked upon them with a new sense of urgency. At least he had no doubt now that these people would at least try to treat them fairly. He had pretty decent lie detection skills and the woman seemed truly surprised they had come so far, and her concern was genuine. The chances of her being a Kumo operative – or an operative of any village – seemed slim.
"You two aren't so bad off, are you?" she asked, her conversational facade gone and replaced with stony professionalism. She grabbed Obito's face and scared him so badly Kakashi felt secondhand embarrassment. "How did you lose these?" she asked. "What's wrong with your face?"
"The usual way?" Obito answered hopelessly, flailing his arm out towards Kakashi as if literally searching for a lifeline. He snagged his shoulder and Kakashi just let him hold it.
"It happened in the, um, fires," Kakashi said lamely. "I lost one, too."
This the woman regarded with suspicion. "You don't have any other burns."
"It was a very controlled fire."
She didn't push it and instead called for someone named Etsuko, who turned out to be one of the younger nurses who had been a part of the flock that swooped down upon Asuma. A staff of around twelve seemed to be employed and all of them looked vaguely related, leading Kakashi to believe they had stumbled into a family practice. He would put money on the woman still clutching Obito's face being their matriarch.
"Etsuko, take these two to exam room three and take care of them. I'll send your sister to help you when she finishes her break."
"Yes, grandmother," Etsuko purred softly, picking up a clipboard from the desk. She gestured for Kakashi to follow her. "This way."
Exam room three was on the farthest side of the clinic and with only one paper covered table to sit upon, Obito and Kakashi had to share. Etsuko didn't look up from her clipboard as she began to ask them questions.
"Names?"
"Minato," Kakashi lied.
Obito followed suit, choosing the name of one of his newest cousins who was probably being adopted into some family in Kumogakure right about then. "Sasuke."
If she thought it strange they didn't offer family names, she didn't comment. "Age?"
"Fifteen."
"Same."
Etsuko asked a few more mundane things then got to work poking and prodding them by taking their blood pressure. After a while she was joined by a nearly identical girl who could only have been her sister and the prodding intensified. They tsked at the gashes in Kakashi's wrists before applying the butterfly bandages he had needed days ago, laughed at Obito's ticklishness, and made them take far too many deep breaths in a row while listening with stethoscopes. In the end, they still didn't get any butterscotch candies. What they did get was a brief visit from one of the older nurses who informed them that since the doctor was busy in an emergency surgery with their friend, he would be seeing to their treatment. He listened to them take several more deep breaths and told the twins to set both boys up on a drip – they were dehydrated – and to start them on a full round of antibiotics because if they were half as germ riddled as they looked, it was probably too late to save them anyway. Kakashi just scoffed. He wasn't that bad off. Still, the notion of a an IV wasn't pleasant and Etsuko laughed at him when he hissed while getting his drip.
"Aw, is Minato-kun afraid of needles?" she teased.
"No," Kakashi insisted. In reality it was much closer to 'Yes, and please take it out.'
Run him through with a kunai and he wouldn't blink; poke him with a needle and he would moan for days.
The antibiotics they were given weren't intravenous, for which Kakashi was thankful. He swallowed the four horse pills that were given to him and drank the sweet apple juice they gave him in a little paper cup without fuss. Shackled to an IV as he was, he didn't leave the exam room while where Etsuko told them they could stay and wait for Asuma. Kakashi migrated himself and his drip to a chair in the corner, which made room for Obito to spread himself out over the exam table. Within five minutes he was snoring. Kakashi stole his apple juice and when he polished it off, he counted ceiling tiles. Something told him they were going to be here much longer than he wanted and it left him feeling uneasy. Every quarter hour or so Etsuko checked on until around the sixth time she poked her head in when she told him that Asuma was sleeping in the overnight room.
"Papa says you two can stay, too," she husked. Her voice was like sandpaper, and if Kakashi were honest he would admit to liking it. "Unless you'd rather stay somewhere else, of course. We've got more than enough eyes to watch over him."
Kakashi looked at Obito where he was still snoozing, then back at Etsuko. "We don't have anywhere to go," he said honestly.
Etsuko's eyes softened. "That's okay."
She entered the little room and gently shook Obito awake. He jumped with a start, grabbing her and bracing her away from him. Etsuko yelped and Kakashi stood up slowly to rescue her.
"Calm down, Sasuke, it's just the nurse," he drolled.
At once Obito remembered where he was, releasing his grip on Etsuko. He smiled in her general direction. "Sorry," he said. "Just a little jumpy... I scare easily, you'll have to be gentle with me."
"I'll keep that in mind," she told him. Apparently a half-assed apology was all it took to win his way into her good graces. "Let's get you to the overnight room, there's a real bed for you there. Are you hungry?"
Obito slid down from the examination table and assured her that yes, he was hungry. Did she have any dango? Could they go get some? Kakashi thought about kicking his teammate again as they wheeled themselves and their drips out of the room, following Etsuko to a long room full of thin beds separated by privacy curtains. Only one bed had the curtains drawn. Kakashi guessed that was where Sarutobi was resting and positioned himself at a bed near to the door. If anything happened, if anyone had tracked him, Kakashi was the only one who could protect them. He felt responsible. Obito on the other hand felt like they were on vacation and acted like he had just checked into a hotel with room service.
"Do you think I could have another of those apple juices?" he asked Etsuko. "Someone stole mine."
He tried to shoot a look at Kakashi but only managed to glower at the wall. Kakashi supposed it was endearing on some level. It must have endeared him to Etsuko at least because not five minutes later she had brought him an entire jug of apple juice, and after that another nurse delivered dango to him. Kakashi was speechless. Since when had Obito been charming? Probably since he'd gotten a sympathy card stronger than a kicked puppy in the rain. Kakashi watched him chomping on his food in mild amusement.
"You're going to make yourself sick again," he said.
Obito's expression was indignant."That's not going to make me share."
As if he wanted him to share. Ignoring Obito's attempt at a taunt, Kakashi stood up and approached the drawn curtains at the far side of the room. Was Asuma awake yet? Did he want any visitors? It had been over an hour since Etsuko had shown them to the room and Asuma had yet to make a sound. Softly, Kakashi called his name through the fabric. Bed springs squeaked in response, as if someone were rolling over. Kakashi gripped the metal pole that supported his drip and bit the inside of his cheek. He supposed they were technically bunk mates and with that he convinced himself that he was entitled to pull back the curtain, revealing an Asuma who honestly didn't look any better than the one he had last seen being swept away by nurses. Sarutobi also had a drip but his was set up with some sort of pain killer piggy backing, and he had been properly bandaged and splinted with sterile materials. His right hand was cased in gauze halfway up his forearm that prevented Kakashi from fully analyzing the damage, but his skin was still sallow and nothing so measly as a little amputation could fix the look of emaciation that had set into all of them. Only continued days of having enough food and rest would repair that. Slowly, Asuma's eyes cracked open and he fixed Kakashi with a dark, dilated stare.
"You're being rude, Kakashi," Asuma said. His voice was thick. Probably drug induced.
"Actually, I'm Minato."
"Oh. I told them I was Genma."
"Nice. He went with Sasuke."
Asuma made a tired noise. "Brilliant."
"So... how are you?" Kakashi asked.
Asuma nuzzled his pillow. "What's left of me is doing great. Now let me sleep, Minato."
Kakashi closed the curtains and wandered back to his own bed. His jaw still ached from where H hit him, and wondered if perhaps she had fractured something. He massaged the sore spot and decided it didn't really matter. He wasn't all that concerned about his beauty. Not when one of his friends was laying a few beds away literally missing body parts because of their captors. A hairline fracture seemed frivolous by comparison.
Shortly before nightfall, Etsuko came back by and fiddled with their drips. Kakashi didn't pay her any mind, but Obito made a big fuss about her visit, thanking her for everything and generally acting a fool. Kakashi didn't pay him any mind, either. Actually, it was getting hard to focus on anything. The ceiling was getting fuzzy and the halogen lights were prisming and scattering as his focus deteriorated. He had a niggling feeling in his chest that he should be concerned about the sudden lack of gravity to the situation but all he could really think was how nice it sounded to go to sleep. He didn't struggle then and when he woke, it was dark and movement seemed to be beyond him. Someone had drawn a chair to his bedside and sat up straighter when Kakashi opened his eyes. Even in the dark Kakashi could make out his bright smile that reflected moonlight off of each and every pearly tooth. It was an alarming smile and Kakashi didn't like it, or the way his muscles didn't respond and tense while every fiber of his conscious said he should get up and run.
"Ah, nice to see you're awake, Minato," the man said in a kindly voice. "I'm Sakurada Jin, the surgeon who saved your friend. I was beginning to think I would have to drag you into consciousness myself. Poison is like that sometimes... as I'm sure you know, since you're struggling to lift your head. But you shouldn't worry, son! I've got the antidote right here." As if to emphasize this, he lifted the syringe in his hand. The needle looked much larger than Kakashi really thought necessary. "Now, you'll have to be honest and square with me if you want it, because I've got this problem. See, I think you're a foreign shinobi, Minato. Did you know that was the last Hokage's name? And you're a dead ringer for the White Fang..."
Kakashi found that to be an unfair accusation. In his opinion, he rather favored his mother, but in what world was he in a position to argue about it? Jin tapped the syringe fiercely, prepping it.
"Now...," the surgeon said, dropping his friendly facade, "let's talk."
this fic is the reason im friends with tumblr user hisohka, therefore i blame it for at least 36 of my 99 problems. stats: narusaku of dubious timeframe, written for the narusaku exchage 2k13. whatever.
The warm southern air was stifling in the night and Sakura threw her blankets back from her body restlessly. It was no use; sleep would elude her forever in this place. Her mind was too far from peaceful and there was no comfort to be found in the hallowed patch of dry ground where Team Kakashi chose to make camp, not to mention the noise. The forest surrounding them was alive with sounds of buzzing and chirruping nocturnes and if she listened very carefully, she could hear another sound. Beside her Naruto was breathing deeply and evenly, and she cast her eyes at him. The wane starlight that pushed through the gap in the treetops above them made him look like stone save for his chest rising and falling, rising and falling.
Every rustle and hitch and rattle met her ears like a symphony.
Their mission was deceptively simple; they had a lead on Akatsuki and they were to investigate it. Sakura hoped that it wouldn't pan out. The memory of her battle with Sasori was still fresh in her mind... as was the fact that before that fiasco was said and done the Kazekage was dead. Gaara was alive now because of Chiyo, but the fact remained. Akatsuki was after the Tailed Beasts and if they could, they would extract them from the shinobi who served as their jailers and rob the vessels of their lives in the process. Sakura turned on her side and watched morbidly as Naruto's chest rose and fell while her own tightened around her heart.
There was nothing fair left in the world.
“You should sleep, Sakura-chan.”
The croaky announcement came from Naruto himself, who in her preoccupation with his respiration had slowly cracked open an eye. They were sleeping on pallets that were entirely too close together but in the wild it didn't feel intimate to Sakura. She just felt kind of vulnerable and maybe like it wouldn't be so bad of an idea to close the five inch space between them.
“I can't sleep,” she whispered back.
He rolled over to face her and she could hear his perplexed expression in his queried, “Why?”
“I'm... worried.”
“...If it's about letting my shadow clones keep watch so we can all rest, it's safe, y'know.”
Sakura smiled. Yes, that was scary, but it was nothing to keep her up at night. “No, I trust you.”
Because she did. Implicitly.
“Then it's those Akatsuki guys,” he said fiercely. To be so thick-headed he was awfully perceptive, or else he was just as worried as her. Her brief smile faded as quickly as it appeared, though she doubted he had seen it at all in the dark.
“Yeah.”
There was a bit of huffing from his pallet, as if he were shifting and moving. “You – you don't need... to be worried,” he stopped and wrestled with his blanket, chased a brief tangent of why was it so hot, and unzipped his jacket before finishing his thought, “about that. You don't need to be worried about that.”
Sakura knew he was right. She didn't need to worry about Akatsuki – that organization would soon have the weight of all five Great Countries pressing down upon it, if it didn't already. That was why Akatsuki itself wasn't the cause of her apprehension... that honor was reserved for the doofus who was busily folding his coat into a pillow and whining about the heat. Sakura opened her mouth to remind him that they were near the borderlands and were probably closer to the equator than he had ever been when another, more pressing thought occurred to her.
“...You weren't sleeping before, were you?” she asked skeptically.
Naruto whipped his blanket up and down, trying to make a breeze. “No,” he answered miserably, “I just thought you might be, y'know? So I tried to be quiet...”
How sweet.
“...but then you were just staring at me, so I figured something was wrong.”
Oh, oh! She should have known. In retrospect Sakura realized that she had never seen Naruto sleep so peacefully as previously observed and now, he had caught her staring. The only appropriate response was to smack him silly.
“I was not staring!” she hissed. He caught her fist in the dark.
“Sakura,” he whispered. “Look, I know you're scared, but trust me. I'll handle everything.”
Sakura's fist melted into his palm until their fingers were locked and she squeezed, hard. The gesture wasn't inherently romantic, nor was it plainly platonic. Instead it was a third thing for which Sakura had no name, marked by desperation and earnestness and more passion than could truly be conveyed palm to palm. She just knew that it was important;Sakura's will was and had been slowly consolidating in a perfect storm of regret and necessity and absolute, purely requited affection, and this was it. She held his hand and felt every callous between them, each crack in the skin, every pass of his cautious thumb trailing over her knuckle. Naruto's words sounded suspiciously like a promise... and Sakura wasn't sure if she wanted to burden him with any more oaths on her behalf. She detangled and retracted her hand from his.
“We should sleep, Naruto,” she said softly, rolling onto her back. “Mission and all that.”
He was silent for a long moment during which she could feel the weight of his gaze, heavy and unmistakable even through the darkness. She wanted to meet it, to reach for him again and not let go come hell or high water, but she couldn't bring herself to move. When he finally spoke again his voice sounded dull and perhaps a bit unhappy as he told her that yes, she was right. They did need to sleep, which was what he had been trying to tell her in the first place.
“Sleep tight,” she urged weakly.
“Mmmm.”
There was a slight commotion as he turned over, too, and then they were quiet. On the opposite side of the clearing Sai and Kakashi-sensei were just darkened lumps and despite his closeness, Naruto might as well have been just as far away now. She was so very good at keeping her distance from him for reasons that escaped her, and now five inches felt like miles.
Soon Naruto's breathing evened again and just as she began to wonder if he was truly asleep this time, he confirmed it by flailing over onto his stomach. She was appalled how she ever could have believed his earlier charade for even a second. Naruto was an ugly sleeper, what with his sprawled limbs and the drool that was almost certainly trailing from his open mouth. Stars twinkled above her until a pale cloud rolled in to block them from view, and though she didn't know quite why, it made her sad. Sad like the fact Naruto felt the need to handle everything, to look out for everyone and keep them all safe. It was terrible and Sakura was reminded of her previous sentiment that nothing at all was fair.
Who would handle Naruto? Who would keep him safe?
“I will,” she resolved in a faint whisper to no one. I will, I will, I will.
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okay but sometimes i start things and they dont go anywhere, but i really wish they did. this was definitely one of them.
There was a legend in Kirigakure that the First Mizukage fell in love with a siren and she was so moved by his love, she gave him and his clansmen all the power of her people. She did it so that they could live and thrive in the waters and in the mists in order to found the village. Or something like that. Suigetsu didn't really hold with it on account of sirens being nothing more than a myth. He did however think that it sounded a lot better than admitting they had no idea why half the shinobi in Kiri seemed to be born with gills.
Better to say the village founder fucked a fish than to say nothing at all, he supposed.
originally this was going to be a oneshot, but now just a drabble because im too busy with other (also ns) projects. set at the end of the rescue gaara arc; enjoy!
There was no explanation for the sharp sting in her side Sakura felt when a large Sand nin relieved her of Chiyo's body. Or maybe there was; he inadvertently jostled the deep wound Sasori had inflicted, causing Sakura to hiss. It wasn't life threatening, but the pain was real enough to merit attention. She lit her fingers with healing chakra and fluttered them over her abdomen, carefully examining the extent of the damage.
It was Kankuro who noticed this. “Are you okay?”
Sakura looked up at the puppeteer and gave him a thumbs up with the hand not occupied with making sure her innards weren't ruptured or hemorrhaging. “Just fine, Kankuro.”
He looked skeptical, but of all those gathered to witness Gaara's revival, Kankuro knew best her abilities as a medic. “If you say so.”
Kankuro turned away without further question, returning his attention to his brother and sister and the subdued jubilation of the Kazekage's revival. Temari was kneeling beside Gaara, who was now sitting up and looking as tired as Sakura had ever seen him. His eyes, always heavy, seemed sunken into darker rings than ever and as she worked to knit her own deep tissues back together again, she felt the undeniable urge to go and check him over at least one good time. She rubbed her stomach, frowning both at the hole pierced through her vest and at Naruto where he squatted very much in the way of Gaara's reunion with his siblings. He was talking loud and cracking wise, grinning as if he hadn't been on the verge of total breakdown only moments before, as if Gaara had only been laying down for an ill-timed nap and not dead at their feet, and he was smiling so beautifully as he did it that Sakura thought her heart might stop at the sight.
Do not risk your life so foolishly. Chiyo's parting wisdom was still fresh in Sakura's ear and as it rang about in her head like a bell, she thought she understood. She let the soft glow of her chakra fade and her hand fall into her lap just as Naruto finally seemed to notice that she had been ailing.
“Are you okay, Sakura-chan?” he asked belatedly. In his distraction Temari took her turn to fawn over her brother and Sakura tried to smile at Naruto even half as brilliantly as he did for her.
“I'm fine, Naruto,” she replied. But Sakura knew then and knew it well that she couldn't afford any more reckless choices and deep tissue wounds for no reason at all other than hating to lose.
