Whoa. Exactly 3000 words! Whoaa! It wasn't even intentional. WHOOAAA! SUCH A PRECISE NUMBER! WHOOAAAAAAOAOOA!
"What is there to discuss, Hiruzen?" Homura began. "Hatake Kakashi has committed high treason in knowingly murdering the Vessel of the Nine-tails, a valuable property of the Leaf."
"I agree, Homura." The Third returned at his old councillor. "If Hatake Kakashi had committed his crime with full knowledge of that fact, then he would indeed be guilty of high treason and be summarily executed."
"I see. So you believe the copy-nin to have committed unintentional murder."
"No, Homura. I believe the murder was intentional. However, I've known Kakashi since he was a boy. If there's anything I know about him, it's that he would never harm the son of the Fourth Hokage. There is something more to this. I know it."
Homura sighed. "Regardless of what you believe, the fact remains that Hatake Kakashi is guilty of murdering the Nine-tail's vessel. That in itself is a crime which we cannot so easily forgive, even if the civilians and the vast majority of the village may think otherwise."
The Hokage chuckled with macabre humor at the thought. The fact that Kakashi might even be considered a hero by many for what he'd done was a cruel joke in and of itself. "We shall see. Once our interrogators have ascertained his motives, we shall see whether or not our copy-nin is still of use to the village."
"That is a logical approach. Well Hiruzen. It seems you didn't really need me after all. You have my support on this, whatever it is worth."
"It is worth more than you think, Homura. Talking to you and Koharu always helps." The Hokage replied graciously. "I'll be taking my leave then. Thank you for listening to this old man's rambling."
"My friend," Homura coughed. "Since when did you start pulling the 'old man' pretext?"
"Ever since I looked the part." Hiruzen chuckled. "Don't tell me you've never done it."
Homura shook his head to the Third's mild surprise. "I have my pride, Hiruzen."
"It's a great phrase to turn to when you're looking to charm your way into people's good graces." The old Hokage justified. "There is a sort of sympathy that comes inherent with old age."
Homura coughed some more. "Charm and old age don't go together often, but I suppose if anyone could make it work.." The old councillor trailed off and chuckled. "Appealing to age is a pretty cheap trick, don't you think?"
Hiruzen's countenance became the very picture of mirth as he prepared to leave. "Not at all."
Even as he extolled the virtues of old age, Hiruzen would have given them all to be able to live in his prime again.
His bones, once strong and his tendons, once flexible, were now both old and weary. His once-sharp mind, while still sharp, was no longer the razor-edge that it had been in his youth. The Hokage's hat grew heavy on his head with the passage of time. It was a role he sometimes loathed having taken; it was one of the reasons he'd retired.
More often, however, he felt the position fulfilled his sense of duty. He was doing right for his village and bringing about justice and upholding peace to the best of his abilities. Even with age, he was still actively doing something. It was certainly better than sitting around waiting for impending death. That was another thing which came with old age. It'd made him acutely aware of just how limited his time was. With that limitation came a desperate need to do as much as he could before he faded away into history as just another man, another historical figure in the books in which many historical figures resided.
Old as he was, he, Sarutobi Hiruzen, did still occasionally enjoy days of spritely spirit, days which made him feel almost young again.
Today, however, was not one such day, and the young man chained before him was the source of his fatigue. Despite his despondent condition, Hatake Kakashi's stubborn silver hair somehow still managed to fight against the equally stubborn pull of gravity. At the moment, everything about the man was stubborn to a fault.
Hiruzen sighed and slipped his pipe to the other side of his mouth. "I know of your connection to young Naruto, Kakashi. Something happened out there to make you do this. I am certain you have an explanation."
Hiruzen waited as the Jonin stared silently down at the floor. One of the surrounding members of the T&I suddenly slapped the man in the face. "Oy! The Hokage requires information from you. Speak, traitor."
"That won't be necessary." Hiruzen said as he turned his attention to the over-eager interrogator. "Allow me to speak to my Jonin.. alone. I will call you when needed. Make sure one of the Yamanaka remain at hand. I might require their services, loathe as I am to use it on one of our own."
With that, the room was suddenly cleared, leaving one nervous young Yamanaka standing by the Hokage's side, awaiting orders. After a moment of silence, Hiruzen cleared his throat. "Kakashi. Tell me what happened."
The man lifted his single eye listlessly. His other eye had been sealed shut to prevent him from trying to cast any sort of Sharingan-related Illusions to his interrogators, not that he would have done so anyway. "I-" The man's voice cracked. "I killed him."
"Yes, but why?"
Kakashi dropped his eyes back to the floor.
Hiruzen's frown deepened as his patience wore thin. "The Fourth was a father to you. You loved the man deeply. You respected him, and I know with absolute certainty that you value the man's son. I've seen you standing around indecisively, not knowing whether or not you should talk to the child. I've seen you sneak into the boy's apartment, doing small, covert favors for him. That plushy you bought still sits in the boy's bed. You would not have killed the boy unless you had a good reason. Was it an Illusion? Were you deceived or under some mind-controlling jutsu?"
Kakashi shook his head. "I've ruined the Fourth's legacy."
"Hatake Kakashi. Do not try my patience." Hiruzen said sternly. "I don't want to have you come to harm, especially if you don't deserve it. You are as much the Fourth's legacy as his son, and you are one of the Leaf's greatest assets."
The Third waited for Kakashi's reply. Naruto's death had been a heavy blow to him. That the boy had died under his reign as Hokage made him feel a guilt that he hadn't felt since he'd found out about Orochimaru. All those mutilated bodies that the Snake Sannin had produced piled up due to his own negligence when it came to condemning his own students. This was worse. He had promised, in Kushina's dying moments, that he would make sure that her son would live the life that his parents' sacrifices had given him. And now the boy was dead.
As with Orochimaru, he couldn't bring himself to feel hatred, only sadness and guilt. He couldn't imagine how guilty Kakashi must be feeling as the one who had performed the deed.
Realizing that the silence had passed for longer than he'd been expected to wait for, the Third gave a nod to the Yamanaka at his side. "Do what you can."
The woman nodded darkly. "Yes, Hokage-sama."
With that, she began to tear at Kakashi's mind. The Jonin fought desperately, refusing to give up the information that he had. Yamanaka Hisayo growled as her mind slammed into an iron wall. "Hokage-sama, he's resisting."
Hiruzen's forehead crinkled. "Why do you make this more difficult for yourself? I don't want to have to invoke the full interrogation team, but the degree of what you've done would require me to do so. Please." The Third almost seemed to plead. It made him feel so old. Everything about this situation did. "You don't have to suffer. My old heart won't stand for it."
Hisayo tried again, holding Kakashi's maskless jaw within her line of vision between her joined thumbs and forefingers. The Yamanaka winced as she felt herself being punted violently out of the Jonin's mind. She stumbled back and only managed to avoid colliding into a nearby operating table by the Hokage's hands. "He's too strong for me." She reported. "We might need the rest of the team."
Hiruzen watched the copy-nin with stark resignation. The man simply knelt there, unyielding and yet penitent. He had to know that his resistance was ultimately futile. It was almost as if Kakashi wanted to suffer.
"Hokage-sama?" Hisayo toned in, glancing briefly at her recent target. If she were to be honest, she didn't really want to see this man get hurt. Even if he felt guilty about it, the death of the demon-brat was something many had, at some level, desired to see. She was sure the government and people at large would be quick to forgive him of the crime, so why was he punishing himself? Even the Hokage, the one who had called for the execution of the demon-brat's several attempted murderers, had seemed forgiving.
Hiruzen sighed. "Bring in the team."
Kakashi squirmed in place as the team of Yamanaka tore at his mind. He turned his neck left and right, throwing his gaze rabidly from wall to wall and ceiling to floor.
Watching the man, Ibiki smirked. "As expected of one of our best. He's quite resilient. Most would have caved by now. Hokage-sama. I highly recommend including some physical supplements to the interrogation. At the pace we're going, it'll be a long time before we achieve any results."
The Third seemed to pause for a moment as he watched the Leaf's top Assassin struggle. "Kakashi. Please. Think of what the Fourth and his wife have done for you. Think of the life that Obito gave to allow you to live on. Even if you believe yourself unworthy, throwing away their sacrifice is the greatest disgrace you can do to them." The Third finally snapped, his patience gone. He was tired of this. He could tell Kakashi wanted the pain. "You stupid fool. Kakashi. You're not atoning for anything with you're suffering. Valuable time and resources are being spent on you, resources I know need not be wasted if you could just make this easier for us."
Kakashi continued to resist as the Yamanaka tore at his mind. Hiruzen turned away, unable to look upon the scene any further. "Make sure you do nothing that would damage him permanently. The Leaf may still require his services. I leave him in your capable hands."
The head of T&I saluted, tapping a hand to his bandaged forehead. "Yes Hokage-sama."
"Oh one more thing." Hiruzen knead the bridge of his nose between his eyes as he walked out. "Treat him with care."
His escorts quickly followed silently behind him. Hiruzen looked up at the ceiling, letting his old neck creak as they bent to allow the upward movement. The sound of a man's screams echoed down the hallway. Hiruzen shook his head sadly at his toes. 'What pointless suffering,,' He thought. The worst part of being old was watching the younger ones suffer or die before their time.
Naruto's death hurt him deeply, and Kakashi's self-inflicted penitence almost broke his heart. Just knowing that he'd never see Naruto's cheery determination again made him feel as if the world had darkened considerably.
Yamanaka Hisayo was enamored by her interrogation victim. The man's life would have made quite an interesting story if written as one.
Hatake Kakashi was someone who could have been a hero. He had all the qualities of one. Like a fictional hero, he was blessed with good looks, natural talent, a rival, friends who cared about him, a father figure who cared for him, and even a girl who loved him. Further, like any fictional character, he was thrown against a repeated set of hardships; it was a perfect lineup of character, drama, rising action, and conflict
Initially, he'd believed the world to be black and white. That there was a mutually exclusive right and wrong to every set of scenarios. One either followed the rules or they didn't. Thus, with the rest of the village at large, the boy he had been had condemned his own father for breaking a fundamental Shinobi rule in ruining a crucial mission to save his teammates' lives. Hatake Sakumo's resulting suicide had made the younger Hatake fall into a pit of guilt and depression, giving his character an emotional obstacle. It was Uchiha Obito's death which had finally given him the resolution he needed. Those who broke the rules were trash, but those who abandoned their teammates are worse than trash. They were the scum of the earth. It was a belief that Kakashi had desperately held.
This was where the resemblance to the archetypal hero ended.
Kakashi lacked one fundamental aspect that would have allowed him to satisfy the role: motive. World peace? What difference could he really make? He was only one man - a drop of water in the sea. Love? A cheap emotion fueled by hormones. He'd had several romantic flings, each one seeming cheaper than the last. He had no need for money, being one of the highest ranked Jonin made sure of that. Power didn't appeal to him either. Finding the Fourth Hokage's corpse and watching the Third wither away in his office had long disenchanted him of the notion. Even the Third, with all his powers and good intentions, could not stop one single child from the cruel treatment of the villagers he supposedly lead.
So he spent his days doing only what he knew how to do. The number of people that the man had killed for his occupation could fill a sizable crowd of people of all shapes, sizes and gender.
Only routine drove him. Routine and a sense of duty to those who'd given their lives for him. Obito, Rin, and the Fourth - all three had given their lives for him.
He owed it to them to survive. He owed it to them to carry on with what he did, to maximize the potential given to him.
With such a dim outlook, it was no wonder that Uzumaki Naruto's death had so ruined him. The Fourth's son had been the only thing the man had truly seemed to look forward to, a singular goal of sorts for which he'd wanted to strive. The man had unknowingly let that goal build up, filling him so entirely that he'd become consumed by it.
The copy-nin had unconsciously made Uzumaki Naruto something to look forward to for his return from his missions. How was the kid faring? What could he secretly do to make the boy's life a little better? Whether he knew it or not, Kakashi loved the Fourth's child, even if he'd spent the majority of the boy's childhood only observing from a distance, even when he told himself that the source of his attachment was entirely from his gratitude to the deceased Fourth.
Seeing the deepest secrets of those she interrogated was what made Hisayo's job interesting. To make a parallel to fiction, the man was a walking work of tragedy; an apathetic side-character not quite fulfilling the role of hero that'd been so perfectly lined up for him.
It was ironic really. The one moment that the man had finally decided to act his part, he'd made a fatal mistake; it was a faulty split-second yet surprisingly rational decision, one which had utterly destroyed him.
It was both the fact that the man was still an ally of the leaf and that he hadn't intentionally committed treason that had gained him his pardon. There was no reason for the Leaf to lose its valuable copy-nin.
Hisayo ran a hand gently across the man's unconscious jawline, stopping only at the small mole on the right side of his chin. To think this was the face that Hatake Kakashi hid so well, it was a shame. Even with the weariness painted across his features, he was very handsome.
She leaned back and sat. Hopefully he'd wake before her shift was over. Gods knew she needed the company. The long hours of enhanced interrogation had done its toll on her and she wasn't even the one who had been interrogated. If their estimates were correct, the brief coma that the man had been put into would dissipate by late evening. Hisayo sighed. Even when he woke, Hatake Kakashi would need to be placed under watch for a few days. Sorting through his mind, the interrogators had found very strong indications of suicidal tendencies. He would need to be inducted into a care-program until he was deemed mentally stable, a common routine for the program coordinators. Nothing out of the ordinary, in short.
This was another part of why she liked her job. Shinobi could be ruthless war-machines, but more often than not, their humanity eventually got the better of them. Even those who'd thought themselves immune to the atrocities they saw suffered recurring nightmares of guilt and horror in the aftermath of their experiences. Under the system's regular psychological evaluations, a surprising number of Shinobi tested positive to receiving mandatory traumatic stress relief. More than the infiltration of the minds of the interrogation targets that made it to the T&I, the gift of being able to see into people's memories and thoughts made the Yamanaka an invaluable asset in the mental health service sector.
To her, being able to help others cope with their pain was a reward in and of itself. It made sharing the horrors of their experiences that much more bearable. The job paid well of course, horrendous as it could be: None could give empathy like a Yamanaka.
"Hatake Kakashi." Hisayo mused quietly to herself as she waited for the man to wake from his interrogation-induced coma. "The tragic hero.."
A/N: I have absolutely nothing to say. I love R&R's? Yeah. Let's go with that. *wink
