Civilian

Written By: SilentAnonymity

Dedicated to Zhang Sizheng

Chapter 1: Mission

Chapter dedicated to you, for being patient with me during this really fricken' long and hiatus

Job interview at 2:30 today. Holy shiet.

So I'm back from this one year hiatus...possibly two...I don't remember when I last posted...No, wait. I posted sometime in January...well I haven't done anything interesting with Naruto for a while, and because I was rereading some of the stories I liked in the past, I decided to write this.

This one is inspired by Zhang Sizheng's story, Deja Vu which can be read here: /s/4478650/1/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0-Vu

There are a few lines taken almost directly from the story from this chapter. I've used two characters from Deja Vu and the lines that are taken, are italicized.

But wait! Is it? It IS! Holy crap! SA is writing a ROMANCE?! D: Yeah, I can't write romance for shiet. I tried a few times in the past. Either I never got close enough to the romance part, or someone/everyone dies. Great writing skills, SA. -_-

Also, this is a KakaOC story and while I hate OC romances, I couldn't help but attempt again ('cause reading can do that to a person). I'm not a fan of these kinds of romances because a lot of the time they're self-inserts and I'm never really interested in learning about a new character just so I can watch them romance with one of the better characters of a series (at least if the entire story revolves around that pairing, if it's jut a mention, it's not too much of a problem). It's also partially because I have an inexplicable deep-seated sexism within me, which is a cause of some childhood stuff that isn't really relevant to anything except the sexism...at least, not to any of you guys. SO, that being said, no, the female star of this is not a self insert, because while Kakashi is attractive as hell, if I had any relation to the characters that I love in this series (namely Kakashi and Itachi), they'd be my badass older brothers. I don't know, I just never feel the want for them to be my significant other, just the need for them to be my older siblings (whether it be adoptive or not).

TL;DR version: I can't write romances because angst is my dominant genre. I don't like reading OC romances because they're mostly self-inserts and because childhood has left me subconsciously sexist, but this story isn't a self insert (because the only relationship I want with fictional characters is adoptive sibling, not intimate).

There are a few things that are made up here, like the Land of Glass, or the enemies that they're pursuing. I'm still not sure how I feel about this story. I like it, but I also don't. We'll see.

IMPORTANT: I noticed that I screwed something up with the timeline while writing chapter 3. For the purposes of not changing an entire chapter of this fic, I am going to change the age at which Kakashi joins ANBU from 17 to 13. Thank you (more info in description of chapter 3).

Please enjoy!

Dust had settled noticeably on most surfaces of the little apartment, only disturbed by the footprints of the currently asleep ANBU. The absence of the ticking of an alarm clock only further accentuated the neglect and abuse of the poor room, its battery having run out long, long, ago and now sitting permanently at 0742. No matter, shinobi lived their lives with routine, and had the clock been working, it would have clicked exactly to 0600 when Hatake Kakashi rolled over and out of bed.

Left eye closed, he brushed his teeth, washed his face, the usual. Stripping off his bed clothes, which, if you were like any typical shinobi, were armed with hidden weapons, Kakashi stepped into the deliberately cold spray of his shower. After cleaning himself, he got out, dried, and pulled on a fresh set of the black shirt complete with a mask, pants, and the white-grey armour that came with it. Finishing his uniform, he donned the metal plated gloves, issued sandals, arm guards, tanto, and placed the porcelain Inu mask upon his face.

Silver hair still slightly damp, the cool morning air felt nice against the little bit of exposed skin that were his shoulders, he walked silently and invisibly through the slowly more lively streets of Konoha. His body still whined slightly from the strain of the last mission he went on…which was about six or seven hours ago. But he had more important things in his immediate attention, like the large A that was stamped on the top right corner of the mission paper he was looking at while standing in the Hokage's office. It's not that the Yondaime enjoyed working his ANBU to the bones with mission after mission, but because Kakashi felt some compelling, underlying need to constantly be working. Truthfully, he felt it preferable to drown himself in work to dull the pain, than it was to just mull over it while he was sitting in his room. Plus, it gave him a reason to talk to Minato sensei, even though there wasn't anything to talk about really.

"You should really take a break, Kakashi."

"I'll do this one, it's not even S ranked."

"I know what you're trying to do, but you're not going to get anywhere by losing yourself in bloodshed."

"Just stamp it and I'll be off," Kakashi replied, ignoring the concerned tone his sensei was giving him.

"Look, I'm not going to let you go on missions back to back like this."

"I'm not; I slept for six hours last night."

"That's hardly any different."

"Just let me go."

"You're going to wear yourself out, mentally and physically, despite how strong you are in both respects."

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

"Then let me cope with it the way I've always done."

"That's not going to help you, you're only going to cause more damage to…" he trailed off, suddenly realising what he had accidentally implied, that yes, it was because Kakashi worked so hard that everyone around him started dying. Because after all, wasn't it because of his drastic changes in personality that caused the death of both his father and Obito? No, he was wrong and saying anything that tried to justify his mistake would just make things worse. So instead of trying to correct his sudden, stress and concern caused mental slip, he stamped the mission paper and Kakashi left without a sound.

Solo mission, Kakashi preferred to work alone anyway. It was just some scroll retrieval task, nothing special really, except the importance of the scroll and it being a solo mission, probably why it was A ranked in the first place.

Eighteen hours later, the light taps of his feet on the floor of Minato's office caused the young Hokage to look up. Kakashi smelled faintly of iron, the deep red splotch seeped deep into the grey of his uniform. Left hand out, he produced the scroll and report he had written, and picked up a new mission paper with his right. An S was displayed prominently on the sheet.

"You're not going." Minato said after accepting the scroll and report.

Kakashi only stood in place, motionless and silent, holding the paper expectantly.

Minato sighed, "You need a team for this one anyway."

And as if on cue, ANBU Nezumi (mouse), and Saru (monkey) appeared next to him.

And because it would be undesirable to use personal relations to stop Kakashi from going on the mission, especially in the company of the other ANBU, Minato stamped the sheet with a resigned sigh. He hated Kakashi's lapses of emotional detachment, more than Kakashi's almost masochistic tendencies of pushing himself all the time, but he hated especially when they both happened simultaneously.

The mission itself was straightforward, capture (or preferably, kill, but the Yondaime wasn't one for using killing as the solution for everything) four nameless, but strong nonetheless, shinobi who were suspected infiltration nin from the Land of Birds and to retrieve the signet ring that they had stolen. S ranked because of the importance of the ring and the apparent abilities of the enemy. Well, the mission was supposed to be easy, at least for the class it was in.

Truth was, this was Kakashi's 9th mission back to back in the last two weeks, and regardless of experience or expertise, after that much constant mental and physical stress, there was absolutely no way someone's mental or physical being wouldn't slip, even a little.

Nezumi looked over at Inu questioningly when she noticed his subdued fatigue. Inu only replied with a silent nod, which she took to be a reply of "I'm fine," she tilted her head at him in concern. Kakashi had already acknowledged his tiredness, knowing that stamina wasn't his strongest area, which was why Saru was the captain of the mission.

As the mission progressed, they gathered more and more information about the nin. Wakana, Miyu: a yellow haired water user. Naoki, Youta: a short, dark-haired earth user. They were still in the dark about the other two, but they were making progress, which was always good…even though their revelations complicated the mission a bit.

For one thing, Miyu was an ex member of Kirigakure's Hunter-Nin, similar to Konoha's ANBU, but with different purposes. She was well versed in various Undertaker-Squad practices, and was probably lethal enough without chakra or weapons. Youta was a missing nin from Iwagakure and was responsible for the death of every one of the members of the Land of Glass, both civilian and ninja. Even while the strength of the ninja inhabitants there wasn't enough to chart, defeating the sheer number of people there, by himself, was impressive. Nezumi guessed that the four were taking refuge in the Land of Birds and wanted to gather information about various lands to sell to their enemy countries. It wouldn't be the first time ninja have done this. Still, it wasn't good to jump to conclusions yet.

It had been three days since Saru's team had located and monitored this group of nin. The four worked in a way that was different than most blackmail groups did. The group flawlessly intercepted messenger birds or other ninja groups; that was expected to a degree. There were variants though, like how they took on the form of abandoned children, or how they turned killing into a game.

Saru had come up with a plan that would be executed exactly after the group of nin attacked some unsuspecting shinobi from Takigakure.

"Alright, here's who we're dealing with," the light haired female said, as she drew in the dirt with a stick, "Same rules apply. 50% of the earnings to the one who kills the team captain, the other 50% will be equally divided between the underlings, but males are worth 20 ryo more than the females."

"Easy for you to say, taking my kills when they were halfway dead already. You're a damn cheater, Tsubame," the male with short, auburn hair said.

"Don't blame me for your lack of skill, ass."

"Please, how do you think you have the most winnings so far?"

"Shut up, Kenichi, and I would have gotten that fucker from the grass if you didn't block my way and then stab the guy, right Miyu?"

"You're just denying the fact that you didn't have enough chakra left to finish him off, Tsubakame" the one called Miyu retorted.

"Now you're just being a child. Have some pride won't you?" replied Tsubame.

"Tch. You're being a child."

"For the love of anything, shut the hell up, now, both of you. Kami, I swear, women are the most annoying things ever." Kenichi said exasperatedly.

"Fuck off."

"You're not even going to defend Miyu? I thought you loved her, Youta!" Kenichi was teasing the short, black haired man who was silent up until this point.

"Tch, there's no need to 'defend' Miyu from one dunce who can't even throw a kunai straight."

"You're a son of a bitch, did you know that?"

See, the ANBU group had waited three days because the thieves were tailing the Takigakure nin and were constantly moving. It wouldn't do to just jump in when the nin's guard was still up. No,it was more efficient to wait until the nin were tired and off guard before doing anything.

The fourth day dawned and the Takigakure nin came into view. Intercepted and defeated, but barely, the four rogue nins contemplated their winnings.

"Told you I'd get the captain."

"Yeah, fine, brag all you want, but I get THIS ONE!"

They'd been noticed. Four days. Not bad, the discovery was probably due to their proximity of the nin, which had become much closer, now that they had to capture/kill them. It wasn't really a matter though, for Saru's plan to work, the nin had to notice them anyway. Plus, the three ANBU had already split up.

Because majority of their enemy's chakra was already spent, it logically shouldn't have to be too much of a challenge.

"One measly ninja? Who the hell did they think we were?"

The first phase of the plan was to divert majority of the enemy's attention, using Nezumi as bait. She was good with fighting at a distance and her speed was formidable. It was better to have Inu and Saru join the fight midway. For one thing, the element of surprise and another, they had a better chance of thoroughly knocking out the nin anyway, they had more experience and were a little deadlier.

Phase two included the simultaneous debilitating attacks from both Inu and Saru, enough to knock out or kill the nin. Inu managed to kill one of them with his attack.

"Damn it Miyu. Doesn't matter though, more money for us, anyway…"

"He killed Miyu, the bastard killed Miyu! I'll murder the fucking fuck! You can't be dead enough for killing Miyu!"

"Shit, shit, shit, man, get over it; you'll find another girl." Kenichi said, has he tightened his grip on his chakra blades.

An explosion of poisonous senbon was sufficiently dodged by the ANBU group, very few making contact with the three. The Kenichi guy managed to land a few blows, though not severe, but commendable for even making contact with them.

They were well into the fight and chances of success were pretty high.

What they didn't expect was their enemy's ability to use the Lava Release or Inu's sudden partial inability to use his sharingan. Fatigue had caught up, because nobody, not even the renowned Copy Ninja, could keep up with the insane workload that he had put on himself.

They had one down, phase three relied partially on Inu's ability to use genjutsu, but because that was out of the question, things started to go downhill.

It looked as if they were becoming more and more fucked.

Except that they were Leaf ANBU and there was no way in hell that they'd ever let that happen.

So somehow in the lifetime that was the three hours the fight went on for, Saru, Nezumi, and Inu had all four of the enemy nin down and out. They opted for capture seeing as it would be a stretch to kill (not to mention a waste) the remaining three rogues and if they did, it would only be of some convenient coincidence. Of course, it goes without saying that they sustained heavy damage, themselves. Nezumi was out, Saru was on the edge of consciousness, and Inu was worn down. They were covered in various wounds. Some severe, but none fatal.

Even though his two team members could have put the blame of their current state on Inu, they knew that this complete uncharacteristic and utter fail of ability was, although his fault, a cause of something bigger, something that they knew they could probably respect. After all, they'd worked with the kid enough to know a fair amount of how he worked, and for him to suddenly (halfway) collapse like that, was something they were willing to overlook. It helped that no permanent damage was caused and that the mission was completed as well. Also they were ANBU, and ANBU don't hold grudges, not against usually useful members in any case.

Needless to say though, when Kakashi got back, Minato was pissed.

The three ANBU stood tall and respectable in front of the Hokage, despite some obviously severe wounds that they had sustained. After dismissing the other two to the infirmary, locking up the three captured nin, and carefully storing the ring away safely, Minato shut the door to his office and cast a simple silencing jutsu to keep everything he was about to say from being overheard.

Because, it wasn't becoming of a Hokage to be openly swearing at his subordinates.

Minato's anger seemed to multiply a thousand-fold when he caught Kakashi's eyes straying towards to mission papers sitting on his desk.

"Sit." Kakashi recognised the tone in his sensei's voice. The calm before the storm. "And don't you dare touch those papers."

Kakashi sat silently, fighting valiantly against the fatigue that would soon show itself very, very obviously.

"I know you well enough to know that even if I lecture you, your resolve isn't going to change. But I can tell you this; I don't give a fucking shit if you have some of the best abilities in the entire country. I'm the Hokage and I will fucking fire you and put you out of work until you come to your damn senses."

Kakashi thought it over for a moment, it didn't really matter to him. He didn't even know where he was going with any of this anymore anyway. Or it was just the fatigue.

Minato sighed, his expression softening as he watched a straight-backed Kakashi bleeding out onto his office floor.

"Go to the infirmary. Get checked out. If you come to me requesting for another mission in the next month, I will personally restrain you. Get rest, Kakashi." And there it was, the perfect level of concern, disappointment, and lack of intense anger that brought Kakashi back from his emotional detachment.

"Yeah…"

Minato seemed to have an afterthought. "Even though your mission was successful, I don't want you to do anything but rest for the next few weeks," or months, he thought, "So I'm confining you to the civilian side of Konoha. In effect as soon as you wake up tomorrow morning. I will make sure of that."

Oh. Fuck.

After washing himself in the hospital, receiving the antidote for the poison, and then being bandaged up, Kakashi, tiredly made his way back through the streets of Konoha and into his little, neglected apartment. Once again disturbing the settled dust, he fell fast asleep on the stiff bed in the sadly empty house.

Review?