"YOU ARE LATE AGAIN SENSEI!" yelled Sakura.

Kakashi shrugged. "…Heh… Sorry, but there was this old lady who asked me to help her…"

"LIAR!"

Sasuke scowled at his sensei. Why couldn't that stupid moron be on time, for once? Speaking about morons, where is Naruto?

Sasuke blinked a few times. Not that he minded Naruto's absence, but it just… felt wrong. NO! He was an Uchiha, an avenger! He shouldn't worry about others!

And so Sasuke decided not to care about Naruto.

Kakashi smiled sheepish. "Very well, let's pick up our missions for today..."

Then the silver haired sensei looked around him. "Where is our bolt of energy today? I missed his 'LIAR'."

Sasuke's only response: "Who knows where he could be?"

Sakura's only response: "Who cares?"

Ah. The joys of being a team…

Kakashi blinked.

'Well, well. Teamwork is not very… present in my team. Not at this moment…'

It was late in the afternoon now.

Naruto didn't show up at all today.

Kakashi knew that Naruto wasn't someone who just skipped missions, even if it were just D-ranked missions. Something had to be wrong. Kakashi had one of his famous hunches and decided to visit Naruto after they finished the last mission, to find another lost pet…

Stupid villagers who aren't even able to look for their own pets...

…...

Naruto woke up. He looked at the clock.

18:31

Naruto sat up, jumped out of his bed and let out a little scream of pain.

'I almost forget that I'm injured… Shit! I missed the missions today! What would Kakashi-sensei think now because I didn't show up? Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme probably don't miss me, so that's no problem. But what if Kakashi-sensei starts to worry about me? Or at least, I guess he would care… or not.'

Yesterday some troublesome villagers had beaten Naruto up to hell. Because of the Nine-tails inside of him, those stupid villagers blamed him for everything the fox had done to them.

And since he became a ninja the beating became even worse. Yesterday he tried to escape the villagers and ran into a dark ally. He wasn't able to escape. He couldn't run anymore, so he tried to defend himself but the villagers were with to many to make them back off, especially since he had tried not to hurt them.

The villagers didn't just beat him. They tried to slice him with a knife…

He had multiple cuts and his left side was torn open. It hurt. But the pain of his wounds was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.

Naruto heard a knock on the door.

'Shit! Why now? Is it one of them, coming to finish it?'

He heard another knock.

Slowly, Naruto walked from his bedroom to the door. He laid his hand on the doorknob. Before he opened the door, he asked, "Who's there?"

A familiar voice answered, "Kakashi."

Naruto didn't believe the voice, "You're an impostor! Sensei never uses doors! He uses windows to come inside!"

Naruto heard mutterings from the outside. It sounded a bit like 'I use doors, not very often, only when I really need to but…'

The voice spoke to Naruto again, "I am not able to reach the window. There's a mob of crazed drunks standing underneath it."

Naruto glanced at his window. Indeed he heard yelling outside. The voice was right. Naruto opened the door a bit.

Kakashi stood there, one hand in his pocket, with the other one he held his precious Icha Icha Paradise.

"You weren't there today."

Naruto's eyes wandered to his feet, "I know."

"Why?"

Naruto didn't answer. He looked up at his teacher again. The tip of Kakashi's nose moved a bit, like the sniffing of a dog. He saw the visible eye of his teacher widen.

"Naruto, what in the world happened?"

"What do you mean, Kakashi-sensei?"

"You reek of blood. This is not something you smell every day. Naruto…"

"It's alright sensei! I just cut my finger with a kunai, nothing else!" Naruto started panicking. His sensei wasn't allowed to know about this!

"No, it's not alright. This smell is too strong for just a small cut, nor do I smell iron." Kakashi's gaze became very stern. "Are you trying to hide something?"

Naruto's panicking took over his body. Shit! He should've known that Kakashi-sensei would find out something as soon as he opened the door! He had known this from the first moment he heard his sensei's voice. But why did he open the door then…?

"Naruto, may I come in?"

Naruto was frozen. No! Nonononono! He didn't want Kakashi-sensei to see him this weak!

Kakashi sensed the fear and pain in Naruto. Slowly he pushed lightly against the door. It opened a bit. It was just enough to see the wound in Naruto's side.

"Hell! Naruto, what is this?"

Naruto remained silent, but tears started falling. The blond boy stepped away and Kakashi pushed the door open and came in.

Kakashi didn't believe what he saw. His student was so… so… wounded! In pain!

Guilt tugged at his heart. What happened and why wasn't I there to help him?

The Copy-nin led Naruto into the living room and placed him on the couch.

"What happened to you?"

Naruto didn't answer, but more tears started to come down. Kakashi sat down next to his student.

"Naruto?"

Naruto didn't know what to do. He didn't like it at all if someone saw him without his mask of joy.

"What's the matter Naruto?" asked Kakashi concerned. "What happened to you?"

Finally, the boy answered, "It's noth….it's just… the villagers beat me up yesterday, nothing more. It happens often."

This was something Kakashi didn't expect to hear. He had hoped that Naruto would come with a sad story about falling from his seat while eating Ramen or something like that. But, like always, his hopes were crushed and he had known all along that it was something like this. Stupid hunches. But yet…

"Just beat you up? You are badly injured! Why did they do that?" shouted Kakashi. It was rare for him to shout, but this was so wrong in any way wrong is possible.

'Naruto, why didn't you tell me about this? I could've helped you…'

"It's because I'm the Nine-tails container. They believe that I'm the fox himself and the want to avenge the people who died the night that the Nine-tails attacked…"

Kakashi was really shocked. He did know that the villagers hated Naruto, but he didn't expect that they would try to kill him.

Kakashi thought back… to that day when Naruto showed up with his arm and chest covered in bandages… Did the villagers do that too? And al the other times Naruto didn't look well when they started training…

'Why didn't I see this? Why am I blind at the times when it really matters to see?'

Naruto could feel how his sensei putted an arm around him.

"I'm sorry, Naruto… I didn't know it was this bad…"

"…sob…"

Naruto tried to stop his tears, but he couldn't. Not again. He couldn't just bottle up more sad emotions.

"It's okay to cry, Naruto. If you don't, the pain has nowhere to go. It will just bottle up inside you until it explodes."

Kakashi looked to the boy who was trying to get his emotions under control.

"Naruto, please stop trying to stop your tears. It needs to come out, sooner or later. And the best thing is sooner."

Kakashi thought of the time when Minato-sensei had done the same for him, a few days after Obito's dead. Minato had said the same words to him. One problem, only the Sharingan-eye was able to cry. But that didn't mean that Kakashi wasn't able to feel the emotional pain.

Kakashi wasn't good comforting other people.

But he knew Naruto needed someone now. Someone who would comfort him. Since the boy had no parents, someone else had to do it. But Naruto didn't want to let somebody see in how much pain he was. He could understand that. With one hand Kakashi pulled Naruto close, with the other he covered the boy's back.

Finally, Naruto let go of his emotions and was crying it out now. He laid his head on his sensei's shoulder. Tears felt down on the jacked of the Jonin.

Kakashi decided to let Naruto just cry it all out.

A few minutes later Naruto finally calmed down a little.

"…Naruto, I think you need a check-up in the hospital… your injuries are pretty bad." said Kakashi.

Naruto looked up to his sensei, tears still on his cheeks "…sob… I… I don't want to go to the hospital… not on Wednesday…not in the evening…" said Naruto sadly.

"Why not?" asked Kakashi.

"Because the people who work there now…they really hate me … the medics who are working there today….. they tried to kill me before…"

Kakashi could sense the fear in the voice of the boy. He could also see it in the boy's eyes.

Kakashi sighed "Okay, but let me do something about those wounds. If you don't, maybe they'll infect and you will die then."

"Yeah… I understand." said Naruto while he stood up. But the blond boy fell down again, luckily Kakashi caught him on time and saved him from a fall.

Kakashi putted his arm around Naruto's back so he could help the boy walking to the bathroom. Naruto told to Kakashi where stuff like bandages and some other medic items were.

"Did you already try to do something about those cuts? I have to note that your bathroom is quite messy."

"Yeah, I tried to bandage them but I felt really dizzy while doing that so I stopped."

"It doesn't really matter anyway." said Kakashi.

Kakashi washed Naruto's wounds carefully so they weren't able to open again. Most of them were already healing. Except the wound on Naruto's left side. When Kakashi took a look to that one he noticed that the wound was pretty deep.

After the washing, Kakashi covered the wounds in bandages and took a look to the broken wrist that was healing too. He putted a lot of bandages around it, so it couldn't move.

Naruto felt not really good after all of this. He was dizzy and pale thanks to the pain. The blond boy felt tired as well.

Kakashi noticed this and a wave guilt washed over him. Again he had failed to think about the well-being of his student.

'I should have given him a painkiller while I was doing this. Damn! Why can't I think before I act?'

Kakashi picked up the boy, walked to the bedroom and putted Naruto in his bed.

"Thanks Kakashi-sensei" said the sleepy blond boy.

"You're welcome, Naruto."

After a few minutes, the blond boy was sleeping soundly. A little smile covered his face.

Kakashi decided to clean up the bathroom a bit, seriously, quite messy was the understatement of the year. He made his way to the room, but a small stone hit the window.

Another stone came again.

Kakashi became annoyed. Were those crazed drunks trying to break Naruto's window?

A stone flew again.

Kakashi didn't like the sound.

Stone.

His eyebrow twitched.

Another stone.

He decided to ignore it.

But then somebody outside yelled 'KILL THE DEMON!'

Big, big mistake.

"I don't think Tsunade-sama would mind this." And Kakashi took a bomb filled with sleeping-gas. "And she's not going to find out about it anyway."

Kakashi walked to the window and opened it.

"Ah. I think I lost something, but I'm not sure…" and he dropped the sleep-bomb.

~End~