Notes: Yes, I know some of you are waiting for Antebellum updates (chapter is nearly finished). I've been really busy, aright? Summer class is over, but I still have to pick up my report card, get supplies etc. etc. Just wait, alright:D This is a one shot, no sequel. Woo.
Kakashi both hated and liked rain.
It was a soul cleanser. He liked to
stand in the rain. Be cleaned of his sins.
It was a nuisance. He
didn't like the fact that both sides had zero visibility if the rain
was thick enough.
Right now, Kakashi hated the rain. It was spoiling his mood. Killing the Daimyo's daughter was a hard task. He was currently crouched on a tree, right outside Hidden Cloud. It took a lot of finding too. Hidden Cloud was pressed between a mountain and the sea. Not a good thing.
Kakashi wiped his drooping hair from his face. There would be time to lament the loss of his hairstyle. Right now, he had to get into the Palace. That was where the kid would be staying.
The ANBU put his canine mask on and leapt off the tree, landing amidst the mud and bushes.
Time to do what he came for.
The village's numbers were frightening. If it wasn't for his ninja skills, he would've been slaughtered by now. The Hatake watched his foes go about their lives. He could observe when it was peacetime maybe, but now, he had a mission. He leapt towards the biggest house there was. It looked like the Palace. Generally, important places were bigger than everything else.
The Hatake noted the windows. It was different here. The windows were covered with glass. Maybe to prevent the rain from coming in? In places like these, with heavy rainfall and such, there has to be a drainage. Kakashi hopped down from the roof he had been using to observe the Palace itself, and scanned the base of the building.
There it was. A big sewer pipe. It was protected by bars of steel. There was no way an adult could squeeze through, but a child could. There was a small wire grille behind the bars, but it was rusty. It took a few kicks, but in the end, the rusty grille gave way, slamming down onto the concrete. Luckily, the water inside muffled the sound a bit. Kakashi squeezed through the bars...into the sewer.
The very air here smelled rotten. Decaying materials bumped on his legs as he walked through the muck. Kakashi didn't look down. Who knew what kinds of things were in here. He only wanted to find a ladder. He searched the walls until he came to a ladder at the end. The Hatake put his sandal on the first rung and began to climb.
At the end of the climb, Kakashi found a small maintenance access hatch. He tugged on the handle carefully, finally jerking it open. The hatch opened. A shower of unsavory material rained down on him. Kakashi closed his eyes until the shower weakened. He reached up and gripped the edge tightly as he struggled inside. Now coated with decaying matter and smelling like it, Kakashi slid his way in the maintenance tunnel. Every now and then he would make a turn, but truth be told, Kakashi was quite lost.
He turned left now, after so many others and reached over to the slime-coated handle. He raised the hatch a little. Light burst through. Kakashi adjusted his eyesight as he peered over the hatch.
A brightly lit hallway.
Kakashi opened the hatch a little wider and scanned the place with Obito. Nothing. The ANBU moved out of the sewer and replaced the hatch. He would remember this place. After all, where else would the trail of sewer water lead? Kakashi didn't mind the sounds he made when he stalked in the bright hallway.
He checked every room, until he came to one that was heavily guarded by five bodyguards. Bodyguards! Not ninja. The fools. Stealth would not be of use; after all, he'd still be trailing sewer water. Kakashi did the next best thing and threw kunai at their throats. They died. Kakashi moved on.
He opened the door. The lights were closed in this room. The girl was in her bed. The place was littered with stuffed animals. The floor was carpeted, suggesting that the girl stayed here often. Kakashi walked towards her. Her porthole window was resisting the rain. Only a small sliver of moonlight made shadows on her face. She was young, around five years old.
Kakashi took out a length of wire from his pouch and wound it tightly around his gloved palm. He went closer to the girl, even sitting on her bed, but she did not wake. A sound sleeper then. It would make his mission easier.
Kakashi almost lovingly wound the wire around her throat. All he needed was to pull in opposite directions now. Then the mission would be finished. Another political target dead. She was a pawn in this game.
So why was he hesitating?
Pull.
Kakashi hesitated, but then he was ANBU. He should not be feeling remorse. Remorse was an emotion best left at home. Kakashi tightened his grip around the wire's ends.
Do it!
Slowly, Kakashi pulled. The girl's eyes snapped open. Her pupils widened. In fear. Kakashi nearly stopped, but his ANBU instinct only tightened the wire around her neck. She began to struggle. She flailed her limbs, trying to make noise. To avoid that, Kakashi gave a sharp tug. Her throat jerked, and she flailed even more. But she would stop. They all did.
Kill her.
Kakashi eyed her behind the mask. So young. She was pretty, in a way. It would be a crime to kill her, but then, everything ANBU did was a crime. Shinobi lived to do someone else's dirty work. Shinobi were tools.
Last breath.
Kakashi pulled harder. The girl soon ceased to flail. She tried to talk, unaware that she couldn't. Her flailing reached a feverish pitch, but then she stopped. Soon, a dying breath escaped her lips, and Kakashi unwound the wire. Her eyes were already beginning to glaze over. Soon, the first few signs of decomposition would occur. The ANBU stowed the wire back in his pouch again and turned away.
He left the room. The girl's eyes were still open.
Back down the hall. Back into the sewer. Kakashi tried to wash his hands at a sink in a room near his escape, but whatever he did; the blood he saw didn't go away. The slime did, the blood of his sins didn't. Kakashi stared at his hands. His frame shook, and soon, he was grieving.
Get up.
The ANBU part of him took over, going out the door and into the hallway. He used the hatch again, going down the same path back into the sewer. He waded through the same decaying slop, and was outside again.
In the rain.
He liked rain. He felt the water run down his body, but it never stopped. He felt the burden of guilt, and then the ANBU part of him deserted him.
Kakashi, the real Kakashi, bent down and cried.