It was the pain in his eye- and a half-hearted lecture from Rin- that had sent a newly pubescent Kakashi Hatake to the Konoha hospital despite his usual reluctance to seek medical treatment.
The continued raging of the Third Great Ninja War meant that the Konoha Hospital dealt with hundreds of causalities every day. For something non-life-threatening, Kakashi had been shunted to a small room at the end of the hall. There were four other people in the janitorial closet sized room. The man across from him had a broken leg, and the woman in the opposite corner had a gash on her arm.
Beside him was a young girl that looked around his age, maybe a little younger. She didn't appear to be a shinobi or an academy student, and he hadn't seen her around here before so he assumed she was new to the village. That was what made him pay more attention to her. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing wrong with her; that was until she opened her mouth to reveal that the front portion of her tongue had all but been entirely severed from her mouth. The medic-nin reattached the girl's tongue with minimal difficulty. He informed her that it would leave a scar and be sore, that it would heal better if she ate only liquids, and that she should avoid talking for a week. Most importantly, he assured her that it would heal.
Mulling over recent events, he watched absently with his good eye as the medic-nin proceeded to ask the girl a series of yes or no questions. He absorbed the information subconsciously, even as he was mentally trying to remove the image of his crushed subordinate from his mind. If he even so much as blinked he was reminded of his failure as a team leader. It haunted his every dream in what one could loosely call "sleep". He had treated him terribly. He had been a terrible leader and brother-in-arms. Despite all that, his comrade had died and given Kakashi his eye.
The gist of what the medic-nin had discovered was simple: A Konoha shinobi had taken the girl from her village, presumably out of pity, and had brought her here to the Hidden Leaf Village, to at least treat her tongue. However, upon finding that the small child was not a member of the village, the medic-nin had no choice but to send her away as she did not have a guardian to sign the form, agreeing to be responsible for her. Konoha had heightened restrictions on citizenship, as the War had left behind a great many ninja orphans and the village was in no hurry to take in another mouth to feed. At this point a normal child would have burst into tears by now, but not her. She seemed very…emotionless about the whole thing.
She already had a skill needed to become a shinobi, and she was also a war orphan much like him. Of course, her resolve was breaking down. He could see it; she was losing her ability to appear unperturbed by the current happenings. Perhaps this would lead her to make better decisions; something he failed to do. Maybe by signing the form for her, he could ease some of this guilt…and finally get some real sleep.
"On a scale from 1-10, how much pain do you feel? Are you able to see alright? It's been three days since the transplant; any initial complications should be healed by now, but it will still be sensitive and you may have trouble deactivating the doujutsu. Tomorrow you can officially take the bandage off." The medic-nin had moved on to Kakashi now, asking about his eye as he slowly prepared to shine a light into the new organ before he rewrapped it.
Three days? Had it really been three days? It felt like a year, or one never-ending day; he couldn't decide. How had it been three days? That number didn't fit at all! Where was Rin? Was Rin alright? When was the last time he had even seen Rin? Focus. He needed to distract himself, preferably with something real and visible.
The girl was slowly starting to move from the table, her once white dress dragging over the examination table as she slid down to the ground. She seemed bruised and sore from the way her movements dragged, and she favored her right side as to her left.
"I'll sign it," Kakashi declared blatantly, half hoping to distract the doctor in the process. He didn't want eye drops. He didn't like people poking, prodding, or sticking things anywhere near his personage, let alone his sore eye. It worked. The medic blinked and then his face briefly morphed into shock, but he decided it would be best to get the form before Kakashi changed his mind. He felt awful for the young child, but had no interest in adding the child's potential danger onto his responsibilities list. Quickly bringing back the form with a pen for Kakashi, he handed over the paper for him to sign. He scanned it briefly, and then leaned the paper up against the wall to sign his name. Kakashi returned the form to the medic-nin who then took it away for filing.
The medic-nin quickly finished patching up Kakashi's eye, telling him to come back tomorrow for some antiseptic eye drops to make sure it didn't get infected. He sent the little girl out with Kakashi. Kakashi rolled his eyes at the man. He was too selfish to take in the child, but still felt so bad that he was willing to push the small girl off on any other kid who came along. It was pathetic. Kakashi had no intention of actually taking full responsibility for her. He wasn't going to care for her, but he would most certainly kill her without hesitation if she turned out to be a spy for another village.
When he got outside he turned to her and said "I suggest finding somewhere to sleep for the night. You'll be able to talk to the Hokage about registering for the Academy tomorrow. He lives in that building over there." Kakashi pointed out the Hokage Tower. The girl nodded, still trying to keep any emotion from her eyes as she put her hands together and bowed, a gesture that would normally go along with a 'Thank you'. As Kakashi watched the young girl walk away though, he couldn't shake the feeling this was going to come back to bite him.
AN: A big thank you to my lovely beta librastar, who agreed to take on the story 38,000 words in and help me overhaul it entirely.