Jounin Round
When the enemy attacks, remain undisturbed but feign weakness.
Book of Five Rings, Fire Book. The Second: Tai no Sen
Word count: 86
Kakashi had many enemies but so little that could strike him fatally.
It is a rule, of course, a well learned lesson to put the enemy into a false sense of security but remain ever armed and poised, he had lived and survived this way for years… but now in the face of this uncertainty, in the form of a man, he feigns undisturbed but his insides shake in weakness at the words thrown like kunais and aimed at his nondescript heart I love you Kakashi.
It is not enemy or foe, but a man's own mind that lures him to evil ways
Buddha
Word count: 194
What Kakashi knows is that his mind is not his own. His will is a misplaced direction from the girl and sensei who told him to live (for your self which is an overall confusing concept), a face that haunts him like a ghost (a ghost he once loved) and mistakenly an eye (his guilt) who tells him that it wants to see the future. It becomes a surreal scarecrow then, this man who looks like a ghost, with an eye looking forward and a will scattered around like mist and who cannot for the life of him recognize the voice calling out to him from the present with weird promises of love.
It is a sick pleasure thinking only the ghost can love, the will can move and the eye as the only thing that can see because in the end it is only his mind telling him that he cannot be happy.
But he accepts to live with this tan stranger, only because there is something inside his chest that stirs, something he feels that does not belong to him but at the same time the only thing that can be his.
Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated
Confucius
Word count: 76
"I…" hesitation
"Words are simple, Kakashi."
"I… " fear
"Just four letters…" that those letters are not enough
"Must I?" to capture the moment of being born again
"You make things complicated when it's the simplest thing in the world. The first thing we learn after breathing—" but I'm drowning so utterly
"I love you Iruka." It comes out like a breath but it's such as a sharp intake of breath. The argument is silenced.
It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both
Machiavelli
Word count: 153
"Fool, are you not afraid of the Big. Bad. Wolf?" Scorn. Large chest looms with every breath. A white porcelain mask dotted with red shines in moonlight, yet the other so small stands there against the wood with a knife held high. His white furred ears twitch, hearing the rapid heartbeat of his prey.
The young man looks him in the eye (or at least the shadow of where he is sure he should see mismatched colors) with a foggy familiarity. I know you I know you.
"Run, run, run, back to your school little one." He growls. "The wolf wants to hunt." Feigns to attack.
The young boy runs, defiant still and looks at him with tear stained eyes. I know you.
The wolf watches till he disappears, tail swishes before he collapses on the ground, clawing his chest. He was the wolf that loved a boy he saved too long ago.
Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt
Sun Tzu
Word count: 118
There is a figure that stalks the rooftops, in the pure dark of a cloudy night. Rain. It means rain. Soon he is pelted by a monsoon. He had traced this path so many nights his feet take him to the windowsill he has slipped letters and words and promises between the wooden frames.
Like every night there is no reply. But this night the figure in the bed is not prone in sleep but sitting against the headboard, waiting.
There is no letter tonight. The window is not locked but opened ever so slightly. Tonight the sky becomes illuminated for the briefest moment, showing a shadow sitting on the windowsill, falling into the depths of waiting arms.