A/N: Hi all! A short explanation: this is (somewhat) of a continuation of 'Worth Getting to Know.' I wanted to extend on it slightly, especially since there seemed to be a want for it. Even so, it is my intention that this be able to stand on its own, and so it can absolutely be read without reading 'Worth Getting to Know.' Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy!
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Energy surged through his body, exhilarating and intense. He closed his eyes and took a deep, reviving breath. He had never felt more relieved, as if some missing piece had at last been restored, a forgotten sense returned.
The day that Kakashi was released, it was with a limp and a sky of gray. There was a curious energy in the air, as if it would rain, and the clouds seemed strangely flat.
It was simple; the way that he was able to step out the door, a tone of such normalcy that he appeared for all practicality to have emerged from a check-up. In some sense, he had.
"Kakashi-sensei!" said a voice just down the street. He looked up. It was Haruno Sakura. She must have been heading to see Tsunade, as she had entered under the Godaime's tutelage.
"Yo," he said, rather lazily. She approached him sensibly, with what he considered to be a poorly guised concern. He knew that she knew. He didn't respond to her unvoiced question, and wasn't given time to, in any case.
"Kakashi-san!" said another voice, from up the road. This one was male. Umino Iruka was carrying a small file of papers, and an inquiring intonation. "You're out?"
The copy-nin rifled through a number of explanations.
"Well, you know, they needed the space."
Sakura eyed him. Iruka rubbed his neck. The truth was, in fact, that he had been 'out' for a week and a half. There was an awkward silence.
"Saa," said Kakashi, feeling a little uncomfortable under their scrutiny. "It's good to see you?"
"Oh, well, I was just headed back from the academy," rambled Iruka, and Kakashi realized unconcernedly that it was indeed that time of day, "but I needed to drop off some assignments to a student who lives around here, and so. . ." his voice trailed off. "But yes! It's good to see you too. Especially on this side of the hedge," he added sincerely.
"Yeah," Kakashi said with a shrug, and a glance somewhere past the other man's head. He placed his hands in his pockets, and was coming to the conclusion that it was time for him to leave when the hospital doors spun slowly open. Tsunade emerged, took a survey of their small circle, and came directly to Kakashi.
"Hey, I want a second with you," she said. Kakashi raised his eyebrow. It was mostly back to its former shape. She tossed her head to one side, and Kakashi followed her to stand out of earshot.
Although he tried not to intrude, Iruka caught the phrase 'secondary evaluation' and turned to Sakura for explanation.
"Well, you know how these things are sometimes. If a patient comes in again after discharge. . ."
"Again?"
"Oh," said Sakura guiltily. She knew that she should have been more careful with her words.
"Did Kakashi-san have to come back for some reason?"
Sakura had just opened her mouth to respond when they heard the quiet sweep of the hospital door as it shut, and Kakashi appeared in front of them. He looked unnecessarily inflexible.
"Saa!" he announced, interrupting the young kunoichi, "I think that Tsunade wants you to get to your lesson," he intoned, "and I have to be doing things, so. . ." He ushered the girl on her way, held up a hand to Iruka, and with little more than a "have a nice day!", quite abruptly disappeared.
Iruka stood, only mildly offended by Kakashi's brusqueness. He readjusted the papers in his arms, looking after the place the other man had been, and screwing his lips in thought.
The exchange left him with an offset feeling, a feeling that something was not quite as it should have been.
The enemy was closing in on his presence; they had curtailed his retreat without pinpointing his exact whereabouts. However, the man that they were encircling was not, in fact, Kakashi.
His first mission back, and although he had cleared all checks, he felt a queer, nagging malaise that hung at the back of his mind. His body felt more sluggish – by only a hairsbreadth – but it was enough to hold his notice. He pushed it away; after all, he had been trapped in bed for so long. Watching from a safe vantage, hidden in the boughs of a tree, side pressed against its trunk, he risked a glance from its coverage.
The time for action, he decided, was now. There were three opponents, none of whom Kakashi gauged to be of a unmanageable strength. His copy was dispatched, with a stab to the back and a puff of smoke. The muscles in his legs tensed with the anticipation of fleet action. In the instant of his enemies' bewilderment, he slipped from the canopy and dropped to the ground behind them.
They turned with dissipating confusion, and rising anger. Two had stores of chakra which now in their anger surged to true capacity. They would need to be felled quickly, he reassessed speedily. There were some yards between the enemy and his person.
These men were murderers, and although shinobi, they were of unknown allegiance. What Kakashi did know from his mission statement was scant; they had left a trail of senseless casualties in a number of towns, for what he could only assume was petty bounty. Among their victims were the naive, and the unawares, mostly civilians who opened their doors to a 'wayward soul', only to encounter a blade. Yet he knew, from the resentment in their eyes and the recklessness in their scent, that they were cruel.
His lips upturned in condemnation, but his own eyes showed no emotion. He knew the make of these men: selfish, and indifferent but to their own benefit.
Ever so slightly, he spread the fingers of his left hand, unassuming as it remained, poised at his side.
One began at him, long knife raised. Kakashi let his knees bend slightly in preparation, his muscles wound. He would take this one down with a single movement, in the way he knew best.
By the time he arrived to turn in his report, it was night. He would be late.
The door to the mission desk was closed, and he briefly thought it to be locked. A test of the knob proved him wrong, and he slipped inside. Iruka turned in surprise at the intrusion. He was only just straightening his papers in his arms, ready to set out.
"Kakashi-san," he said, settling down. A look of confusion spread across his features. "Hm! Kakashi-san, you can't possibly have a report. I only just saw you leave the hospital this morning. . ." he said in wonder.
Could it be . . .that he had come to turn in a report from before his hospitalization? Iruka's face dropped; in that case, Kakashi was handing in a report that was at least two months late.
There was a light rush of wind, a flash of Kakashi's hands. Iruka looked up. As he expected, the jounin was gone. Iruka sighed. The mission report quivered precariously in the breeze from the open window. He picked it up resignedly and added it to the pile in his arms. As he shut the window and headed to the door to lock up, he steeled himself, assessing the damage and glancing down at the report. He would have to get it signed and processed with the late reports.
"What a hassle," he intoned with a huff. It was only then that he saw something altogether puzzling. It was yesterday's date on the front page.
Iruka raised his eyebrows. Something was very strange indeed.
"He can't possibly have gone on a mission before he was discharged. . ." Iruka wondered as he descended the stairs, and deposited his papers. Maybe it was a mistake?
Sakura's voice chimed in his head: "well, you know how these things are. . ."
He thought on it briefly as he returned home, adding it to the long list of peculiarities that arose in his line of work.
As he prepared for bed, a last wandering thought crossed his consciousness.
"His hands were bruised," he reflected. Then it was gone, and he slid into sleep.
The raikiri did not materialize.
He looked down at his hand, the bafflement so great that he tore his eyes from his opponent; he saw nothing but the flesh of his fingers, and the cloth of his glove. In a jolting sensation, his body did not react; it seemed to inexplicably, and astonishingly short circuit.
He leaned back in time to avoid the brunt of the knife. It sliced narrowly across his chest, leaving a stinging, red gash. It was enough to jump-start his instincts into place. He ducked down, and swept his opponents legs from beneath him. The man tripped to the ground. The other two were coming at him.
It was not until nearly a week later that the peculiarity of that day returned to him, and he understood at once, and unexpectedly, the truth of the matter.
He watched Gai assert a triumphant cry of victory. Kakashi sighed, appearing so unconcerned over his defeat that it was almost unrepentant. The spectators of their bout slowly began to disperse, many rolling their eyes at the boisterous jounin's zeal. A simple conquest in finger fencing did not, in their opinions, oblige quite so much to do.
Iruka blinked.
"My esteemed rival, the score is now in my favor."
"Hmm?" said Kakashi, a front of very persuasive disinterest.
And it would have persuaded Iruka, if it were not for what he – and apparently he alone – had seen.
Hatake Kakashi, wielder of the Sharingan, and master of raikiri, had been stung by of small, almost inconspicuous snap of static electricity from the Green Beast's suit. Gai did not seem to realize it, nor did the spectators. Yet Iruka had no doubt; at the instant Gai gained his tag, there was the distinct pinpoint of white spark, leaping innocuously from Gai's finger. And Kakashi, for all his veneer of nonchalance, had jumped.
It was as if, despite his impressive affinity for the element, he had indeed been shocked. In both meanings of the word.
Iruka did not know much concerning the intricacies of Kakashi's abilities, but he knew one thing for certain: a man of that caliber did not get shocked by his own weapon, no matter what form it took.
And so, in that moment, Sharingan Kakashi's casual lack of concern became transparent. Iruka saw, as if beholding for the first time something restricted and off-limits, that Kakashi was no less disturbed by the incident than he. He was, in fact, alarmed.
Without warning, Kakashi perceived Iruka's disproportionate scrutiny. Iruka inhaled hastily. In that sudden lock of gazes, Kakashi read him like a book. He knew, even without complete clarity, that his ruse had been breached.
In a move that deeply irritated his thick-browed opponent, Kakashi ignored Gai's proclamations and strode immediately into the personal space of the disorientated schoolteacher. His tone was severe.
"What do you know?"
