#yamkash

Yamato winced beneath his scrutiny. Or maybe it was the use of that name, one that conjured up for both of them a different time, now lost, for better or worse.

“The fact remains, Hokage-sama—”

“—I prefer Kakashi, especially from you.”

“And I prefer to go by Yamato.”

Touché. Kakashi turned away to gaze out the window at his predecessors’ unyielding faces. His own was under remarkably quick construction. He supposed that the lack of features engendered by his mask made it so. His blank face, up there for all eternity.

Behind him, Yamato’s sandals scraped the floor as he shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Orochimaru remains a wildcard. And you need someone who—someone with knowledge of what he’s capable of. It’s the least I can do, to make up for the information that was extracted from me during the war.”

Kakashi turned back to face the younger man. I need you here, he thought. “I’ve offered you a position as my bodyguard.”

“You have a bodyguard already.”

“Genma wants to retire. See the world, or some such foolishness.”

Yamato shook his head. “It has to be me to keep an eye on Orochimaru.”

“It could be anyone, really.”

“No. I have to do it. For myself as much as for Konoha.”

Kakashi’s shoulders sagged in defeat but he forced a smile, lips curving tightly beneath the mask. “Go then. If you must. But I don’t want you to disappear and be a hermit in the woods. You’re to report back to me on a regular basis. In person.”

Yamato nodded. “Thank you, senpai.”

“You’re welcome,” Kakashi said. “Tenzō.”

The carnage was awful and it struck him to the heart.

Slack-jawed, Yamato surveyed his damaged orchard. Only one month away on his self-appointed mission, and he’d come home to a disaster. The young trees he’d so tenderly planted in the aftermath of Pein’s invasion, apple and cherry, pear and plum, it seemed that almost every one bore the gnaws and scrapes of rabbit infestation. He looked beyond them to the slow-growing walnuts, relieved to see the voracious vermin had left the rough-barked saplings for the sweeter more tender fruit trees.

He dropped to his knees beside a young plum. The ground was cool, damp, and moisture wicked through his pants, raising goosebumps.

The base of the trunk bore pale marks where the bark had been scraped away.  He ran the pads of his fingers along the shallow grooves, praying that the young tree hadn’t been girdled. He let out a gusting sigh of relief to find portions of the tender bark intact.

These were his children, a symbol of his hope for the future, an emblem of peace in a troubled world. To come home after a month’s absence to this horrific scene had shaken him and made him question his decision, and at the root of it all was Orochimaru.

Konoha’s most notorious missing nin, the Snake Sannin, had used forbidden jutsu on him as a child, had experimented on him and abandoned him, leaving him to watch his captive companions die one by one. Alone. All alone and helpless until the mokuton made itself known.

Well, he was strong now. Hashirama’s implanted cells had taken root and flourished in him, making him one of Konoha’s most formidable shinobi. Even Kakashi-senpai would be hard-pressed to achieve more than a draw against him in a fight.

He owed it to Konoha, and all the Elemental Nations, to stand guard over Orochimaru’s twisted genius, to thwart such evils as had been done to him from ever taking place again. It was such a small thing, but it was the least he could do to atone for the wartime horrors wrought using vital information extracted from him. Never mind that it was against his will. It had been done, and people had died for it.

Orochimaru had restructured him, and it was Orochimaru’s disciple who had targeted and violated him. Now, using the very abilities that the Snake Sannin had implanted, he would stand watch over the man who made him what he was.

The irony of the situation didn’t escape him.

Yamato curved his hands around the base of the trunk and gathered chakra. The mokuton was strong, but it had limits, and delicate work was the most difficult of all. With care, with tenderness, he would protect these tender young trees and help them grow.

But he was only back in Konoha for a short time. What would happen the next time he was gone? He could hardly justify abandoning his post just to stand guard over a bunch of trees.

It was late when Kakashi left the office. Last one out, but he didn’t mind that. Nowhere else to be, really. Work, or rattling around the empty spaces of the Hokage residence. It was hard to claim a preference, which was why he took an indirect path home.

The streets were quiet, but lights still shone from behind the noren of an open-front izakaya. He slowed his step when he recognized Yamato’s form hunched on a stool at one end of the bar. Earlier that day, the former ANBU had checked in as requested, submitting an overly detailed twelve-page report that was extraordinary in its lack of significance.

“Ne, Tenzō. Should you be drinking all alone in a bar?”

“Have a seat, senpai. Then I won’ be alone, will I?” Yamato spared Kakashi a bleary glance and swirled his sake saucer with moody distraction.

Kakashi perched on the barstool and surveyed the empty counter. Most folks, sensible folks, were long gone, home with families and loved ones, embedded in their lives. You saw a different sort of person in the last hour before a bar closed. Lonely people. People who for one reason or another didn’t want to go home. Like him.

His excuse was work. He’d known what he was in for, with the endless cycle of paperwork and administrative details, so much left undone by the woman before him. But you wouldn’t find his predecessor alone in a bar before closing time. No, much to the dismay of Shizune and the others who served her, Tsunade had done her drinking behind the closed doors of her office.

His office now. But he wasn’t a drinking man. Not really.

Nonetheless, he signaled the bar steward for a flask of sake. “You look troubled, Tenzō. Something you left out of your report?”

“You wouldn’t understan’, senpai.” He shook his head in clumsy denial, drained his drink and ordered another.

“Try me.”

Tenzō gave a vocal sigh. “Rabbits.”

Kakashi blinked. “I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink.”

“Maybe I have, but d’you know what it’s like?” Yamato squeezed his eyes against the unexpected sting of tears.

“I’ll take you home, Tenzō.” Kakashi stood up.

Yamato let himself be led from the bar. “I planted those trees. I watched ‘em struggle ‘gainst nature to grow up strong, and now I gotta stand by, helpless – helpless, senpai, and see them battered by the cruelty of the world. D’you even know what that’s like?”

Kakashi adjusted his hold on the other man to keep him on his feet. Yamato outweighed him by at least a stone. “You’d be surprised,” he hummed.

Yamato shook himself free. “I can take care a’ myself.”

“I know you can. I count on that,” Kakashi thought of all the people he’d lost in his life, strong people he cared about or admired, now gone. He stayed close as Yamato took an unsteady step. “Your apartment’s this way.”

“I know, se’pai. I live there.” He corrected course and they made their way toward the jounin ghetto.

Neither spoke as they walked, shoulder to shoulder. Their silence was comfortable, born of long hours and years together as comrades in ANBU. The fresh air did Yamato good, too. His pace steadied and his breathing deepened. Kakashi slipped down his mask. The autumn air was crisp, and it smelled like fallen leaves and wood smoke.

At the entrance to the apartment building, Konoha’s reluctant Hokage was the first to break the silence. “How long are you staying in town?”

Yamato blinked, and Kakashi thought he might be surprised by the unexpected reveal. He’d certainly bared his face to Yamato on more than one occasion through the years. If he still had the power to surprise, all the better.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Yamato said.

“You’ll be hungover.”

The younger man shrugged. “Won’t be the first time.”

“Well, I know I can’t talk you out of it, so I won’t even try.”

“You know me well.” Yamato’s lips formed a wry smile that tugged at Kakashi’s heart.

He leaned forward and Yamato’s almond eyes grew wide.

The former Copy Nin reached up and adjusted the happuri that framed Yamato’s face. His fingertips brushed the other’s cheek, light as butterfly wings. “Take care of yourself, Tenzō.” He stepped back.

“I—I will.”

Kakashi left without fanfare, but his smile lingered in Yamato’s memory for the rest of the night.

Kakashi was waiting the next morning at Konoha’s main gate, several ninken chasing round his feet while he chatted with Kotetsu and Izumo.

“What are you doing here?” Yamato asked, hastily adding for the benefit of the gate guards, “Hokage-sama.”

“Oh, I have business elsewhere this morning that took me past the gate. I thought I’d come to see you off.”

“Well, uh, thank you.”

Kakashi’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “Be safe.” The traditional send-off. “I look forward to your next update.”

“Hai, senpai.”

Kakashi watched until Yamato was out of site. “Carry on, boys,” he said to Izumo and Kotetsu, then whistled up his dogs.

“Where we going, boss?” Pakkun asked, his little round face peering upwards.