Author's Note: This is my first attempt at fanfiction, so I'm sorry if it's kind of bad... I don't think I got the personalities quite right, and I don't really like the beginning, but towards the middle it gets better. Enjoy (I hope), and please review!
With his new Chūnin flak vest tucked safely under his arm, and a small box in his hands, Kakashi Hatake looked to be in a rather contented state. The usually placid, indifferent child had a rare smile visible through his mask as he headed through the streets of Konoha, towards the Hatake estate. It took the newly promoted Chūnin only minutes to reach his home.
The house was silent - an eerie, disturbing silence, that seemed almost too void of sound to be right. The door's opening did little to help this silence, emitting not even a single creak as Kakashi pushed it open. Consumed by a blissful excitement, Kakashi failed to notice the absolute silence of the house as he entered. The boy slipped off his sandals quickly, and headed immediately into the living room, where he set down his Chūnin vest and the box he had been carrying on a small, round table in the centre of the room.
Kakashi paused for a moment, admiring the murky green shade of the vest. However, he soon tore his gaze away and turned to the box. In one swift movement, he lifted the cardboard tabs. He knew what it contained, of course, though the boy was still rather pleased to see the neatly stacked pile of unblemished kunai filling the box, insulated by several sheets of bubble wrap.
It was only when Kakashi reached into the box, lifting out a sheet of bubble wrap to reveal the kunai beneath - and in the process accidentally popping one of the tiny air pockets - that he noticed the heavy silence lurking within the house, disturbed by the sharp snap of air released from its bubble.
That wasn't right. Although Sakumo generally was quite quiet, the estate was never... like this. This was a different silence, one that felt wrong in every way. A dead silence.
Kakashi slowly rose to his feet, the single sheet of bubble wrap grasped loosely in his hand. Turning away from the living room, Kakashi ventured further into the house. With each step, he was reminded how utterly wrong the silence was. His soft footsteps seemed to be swallowed by this silence, consumed immediately with no chance to linger in the tense air.
After only two minutes, Kakashi found him.
Sakumo's study was no different from the rest of the house - silent - yet in a way, it almost seemed to breach the point past silence - no, this was more than that. This was not simply the absence of noise - it was as though every sound in this room just stopped as soon as it begun. There was no echo, no fade. The carrying of sound here simply was not possible. And yet... even if such carrying of sound had been possible, it was unlikely Kakashi would have noticed. No, this boy was much too preoccupied at the moment.
From where Kakashi stood, Sakumo almost looked peaceful, as though he had simply grown tired and curled up to sleep on the floor. Of course, all that was in Kakashi's view was the man's back.
Cautiously - as though he were attempting not to disturb the silence, and with it, his father's rest - Kakashi circled around the elder Hatake, peering down at his father's still, silent form.
Too still.
Too silent.
Kakashi knew. He had known from the moment he set foot in the room, if not earlier, what he would find when he looked upon his father's face. And yet... this prior knowledge did little for him now. It did not numb the shock of seeing his father's pale face, eyes blank as they stared off into some other realm, features slack, yet in some way troubled.
For a moment, Kakashi simply stared, gaze drifting slowly over Sakumo's form, and lingering on the tanto protruding from his father's gut, blood still leaking out onto the floor, seeping deep into the wooden planks, pooling around Sakumo.
Some distant, subconscious sense in the young chūnin told him that the moment would soon be over, yet Kakashi felt no such release from the shock.
His movements slow, careful, Kakashi knelt, near the corpse's face. He barely noticed as the blood - his father's blood - percolated his pants. The child simply blinked, slowly, as though he were in a trance. Like all his movements, the boy was sluggish as he slowly lowered himself fully to the ground, shifting onto his side as he pressed his face against the wooden floor, blood immediately staining his pale skin.
Kakashi lay there, a mirror of his father, staring into the man's dark, unblinking eyes. And, although his fingers did methodically, subconsciously flex, pressing the air out of bubbles, the room still did seem, somehow, silent. The snaps - like the mechanical ticking of a clock - did nothing to hide what lay before the boy. And thus, the dead silence remained.
Minato Namikaze frowned, glancing up at the rapidly setting sun for what was at least the fifth time in the past minute alone. The fiery orb in the sky was his clock - and it certainly seemed to be one that troubled him greatly at the moment.
Kakashi was late.
If it had been Obito, or even Rin that the Jōnin awaited, a late arrival wouldn't have fazed him in the slightest. However, this was Kakashi. Kakashi was never late.
Running a hand through his bright hair in frustration, Minato released a sigh. Their meeting must have just slipped the boy's mind, right? There was no reason to worry, Minato told himself insistently.
And yet... Minato knew he was wrong. Kakashi never forgot.
Minato approached the Hatake estate in a rather concerned manner. In the time it had taken to travel across Konoha to the home of his student, his anxiety had only grown. He was now certain that something was wrong.
Reaching up to knock sharply three times on the door, Minato had already begun to assess the front of the manor, searching for a way in. He expected no answer, a deep, nauseating, and doubtful intuition that gnawed at him from the inside out. It took the man only seconds to locate an unlatched window adjacent to the door.
Swiftly, Minato pushed the window open, clambering quietly inside. Immediately, the dreadful silence hit him. Against his will, the Jōnin shuddered, disturbed by this unnatural silence. However, as he strained his hearing, his ears were greeted by a faint sound.
Snap.
Snap.
Snap.
The clicks were steady, like clockwork, coming from somewhere within the house. Minato dared not disturb this eerie almost-silence, and elected to search for his student rather than call out.
The living room was empty. A newly commissioned Chūnin flak vest sat on a circular, central table, aligned neatly with a small cardboard box, though there was no sign of another person in the room.
Minato moved from room to room, scanning each carefully, as he made his way deeper into the estate. Finally, the man came across one that, unlike the others, held human life.
There lay his student, curled on the floor, a crimson liquid staining his skin where it touched the wooden planks. The boy could have been motionless, if not for his fingers working methodically on the sheet of bubble wrap clutched tightly in his hands, and the slight rise and fall of his chest as he stared vacantly into the eyes of another, who seemed to be a larger, mirrored version of himself.
It took Minato only a moment to realize who this mirror image of his own student was - Sakumo Hatake. It took him only a second longer to feel the simultaneous relief and horror as he realized the blood staining the floor was not Kakashi's.
Somewhere in the distance, a voice was calling his name. Kakashi registered this only on the most vague of levels, and for some time, it failed to register with him that this voice truly was here, penetrating the silence of the manor.
Even as Kakashi did become aware of the voice, it was in gradual stages. First, it was simply a warm presence in his mind. The voice, although it did disturb the dead silence surrounding him, was not sharp. It was calm, soft, gentle. Unlike so many voices in this world, this voice was not a threat.
"Kakashi..."
Kakashi... that was him, wasn't it? That name was... his.
"Kakashi..." The voice repeated, with only a hint more urgency in it.
Now, the voice became familiar. Kakashi knew now why it seemed to cause him such comfort.
"Kakashi... are you..." Minato trailed off. While he was usually so smooth with his words, language seemed to fail him now.
Slowly, the young Chūnin turned his head, eyes following sluggishly to meet those of the blond-haired man who crouched behind him. For a moment, the silence remained, although the boy did open his mouth. Finally, he spoke.
"Minato-sensei..." His words were quiet, though definitively audible.
"I... I'm here, Kakashi." Minato cursed himself silently for lack of better words, though he knew not much could be said in this situation. All too soon, however, he was drawn away from his thoughts.
Kakashi broke.
It was like watching the face of a clock shatter. While the boy had always been so methodical, steady, and composed, the young shinobi who now lay before Minato was infinitely different. All at once, the composure that had held strong on Kakashi's face for so many years fell away in pieces. His jaw trembled, eyes wide and shining with unfallen tears. His breath, so measured and calm before, came in short, erratic gasps. His hands snapped into tight fists, disrupting the constant snapping of bubble wrap, the ticking of the clock, with one sudden cascade of pops.
"Minato-sensei..." Kakashi repeated, though it were as though the words were in a different language entirely. Before, they had been so calm, and quiet. Now, the boy's voice quivered with fear, his words dripping with grief and the tears that had yet to breach his eyelashes.
"Shhh..." Minato whispered, reaching down to wrap his arms tenderly around the boy, drawing him up, off the floor and in close, holding him against his chest, "It's okay, 'Kashi... I'm here..."
In Minato's arms, the last of Kakashi's composure fell away, as tears slipped from his eyes and his breaths became heaving sobs.
"Minato-sensei..." Kakashi sobbed once more, his tone desperate and pleading, for any sense of grounding or comfort.
"Shhh... It's okay, it's okay... It'll be okay..." Minato whispered, and although he knew that it was likely a lie, in that moment it was all he could do for the broken clock in his arms. All he could hope for was that someday, that clock may tick once more.