Not prologue, actual chapter.

Thanks.


Wounds not licked.

The long days of the summer were basking, glowing; and they mellowed as the green leaves dulled, botched with the colours of the sunsets that drew nearer and nearer all the time. The long days were ending, and it was as if the last light of the summer, the golds and yellows and oranges, came flocking down from the tree tops in their throngs. Stripping them bare in slow motion. They danced, carried by the breeze in an elusive flutter before they paved the ground in gold.

All it took was another shudder of wind, and a few more crinkled leaves dropped from the skies. They floated gently in his wake, covering a telling colour—too late for the season. The surly man ambled forward, not bothering to cover the trail of blood he left behind.

Their blood on his knuckles.

His blood on the ground.

He walked at his leisure, his one, uncovered eye bored and seemingly oblivious to the gash on his right arm. Haah. A-grade my ass. What was that guy's name? 'Shigekura Monoe' was graciously overestimated- B at best. The two dozen bodyguards though? Hm.

The medics take one look at this, I'll be out of action for half a month.

Finally, the one eye fell onto the gash as if the man were deeply bothered to even look. He tottered to a stop, regarding the leaking mess more like a curious child studying a grazed knee, than someone who was, well, brutally lacerated. His left hand clasped over the wound, and he held it there a couple moments. Suddenly, as if trying to trick himself, 'don't tell me when the pain will come just do it'- style, he tightened his grip with a shock. Agony shot forth. Blood dampened his uniform.

Ok...good start...'Least that'll stop the blood flow.

He could almost see Gai's bawling face stuck through his window.

No Kakashi! This cannot be! We will resume our rival match once you're at full power! Youth, Kakashi, Youth!

God yes. No.

Yes to the 'rival fight' cancellation. No to…youth.

Fix my kami-damned window, Gai!

He'd be thirty soon, he realised, and he shrugged mentally at the thought. Only some twenty years as a ninja, huh? It felt so much longer. And he felt so much older. It didn't help that he had silver hair and an old-timey mask. He could chant the old rules like it was on the back of his hand. The ones no one cared about anymore. To the new ninja today, the young, green: the genin and chunin, he might as well be ancient.

And that was what his sharingan was for. He could see the future, and it was bright.

The generation gap was miles apart. Kids could grow up slow and silly; worry about grades or cry over a grazed knee, play soldier in their backyards, and war was a game. They threw tantrums over losing games, rather than over the bodies of dead comrades.

No ghosts visited their dreams. And they didn't need to wake up in the middle of the night, writhing and gasping for breath, drowning in their own rooms.

They didn't need a reflex that killed first and asked questions later. They didn't need to train themselves into a constant state of paranoia, deliberate and suffocating, not a breath to spare.

They didn't know a single name etched upon the great gravestone of Konoha, and certainly no need knowing names like his. Copy-nin Kakashi was still young, and a relic. Marvellous. Incredulous. He couldn't have hoped for better.

Time passed. Kakashi treaded deep amidst a thick silence. The leaves that blanketed the floor crunched under his footsteps, and for a long while, they were the loudest sound around him.

A bright glint flashed through his eyes. His pupil dilated. In a sudden, deft movement, Kakashi ripped his body backwards in an instantaneous jolt—narrowly missing a kunai that would have sped clean through his throat. Oh. His own reflex caught him off guard, and the lurch backwards made him loose balance. Instead, he followed the movement naturally, toppling over and propelling his feet off the floor. One bloody hand planted into the ground, and he pushed up from a back hand-spring. The kunai pierced a tree trunk with a loud 'thock' before he landed.

What the hell?

Blood oozed from his gash. Ow. He turned his arm up toward him. Ow, ow. Suddenly, another shower of shrunken came cutting through the bushes, and they landed languidly before him, pinning leaves to the floor. Not aimed at him.

Well.

A fight was going on near him.

What to do?

He could call for reinforcements. But how long would they take to get here? Here, was the middle of nowhere. He could deploy a shadow clone, but it would lack vitality thanks to his injury.

Some sullen part of him, somewhere close to where he kept his festering cynicism, he honesty wanted to thank that arm of his. Thanks, right arm. Obito would have been proud.

Hell, I could just walk away, he thought, as he walked towards someone else's fight.


Notes:

Thanks for reading.

Ohh. That...that looks glaringly short...sorry. The thing is, I wrote this entire fic without chapter breaks or anything, so I had to break it up separately and now the chapters are a tad uneven. Longer stuff coming up.

-earl