Chapter 3
A thick ray of sunlight warmed the wood flooring in Kakashi's bedroom, making dust particles dance in the stream of light. Calm blue rivers dusted with white shimmers painted the skies covering Konoha; juxtaposing the building disarray and busy residents.
The sound of things smashing outside Kakashi's apartment slowly roused him from a dreamless sleep. He breathed in deeply, briefly catching the dull scent of a familiar aroma he loved but it was slowly fading away.
Another crash outside of the apartment peaked his curiosity, he got out of bed to stare out into the street, he saw different piles of debris scattered along the stretch of it.
Civilian and ninja were set to clearing up. Judging by the positioning of the sun and the sweat streaked brows of those on the street below, it was afternoon, and they had been active for quite a few hours. They were organising piles of recyclable wood, perished furniture and sweepings of glass etc.
Running a hand through his bed head hair he lethargically made his way to a chest of drawers to get clean clothes. He pulled on his Jonin trousers and set to diligently wrapping his calves and feet; he thought about making a quick visit to the memorial stone before he went to see Tsunade. He had already overslept, what's another hour or two?
He grabbed his standard navy blue shirt and draped it over his shoulder and headed to the window; leaving his Jonin vest and headband.
The chronically late ninja nimbly jumped onto the ledge and quietly slid the window open. Balancing on his heels he leaned out and gripped the edge of the roof. His shirt was still slung across his shoulder as he skilfully swung his body, using the momentum to flip up to the roof he landing silently on one knee.
"Ahem..."
He visibly froze in reaction to hearing the familiar voice from behind him. He turned on his heel to see the buxom blonde Hokage leaning on a guard rail with her arms folded underneath her breasts. Kakashi was hastily dressed in seconds. Tsunade was visibly irritated.
"Kakashi Hatake, what time is it?"
"7:30am?" He yawned and stretched his arms above his head in a catlike manner.
Tsunade scoffed at the lazy man in front of her, he now had his hands in his pockets and stood with his weight on one leg. His lax demeanor only further fueled her irritation but still managed to behave herself instead of flicking him off the roof like she wanted to.
The busty blonde let out a long sigh and looked around to see if there was anyone else in the vicinity. "I need to look at your eye for damage, it seems you expended all your chakra before you came to my rescue."
He rubbed his neck in realisation of how much he had actually exhausted himself, to the point where he did not actually detect his own Hokage`s presence on his roof. He started to protest her medical inquiry nontheless.
"Hokage-sama...I don`t think its neces..."
"Enough. If you were ambushed at that time the outcome of this whole ordeal would of been a lot different and some lucky enemy ninja would have otherwise lived!"
He understood that but Tsunade didn`t know that he had in fact been ambushed, several times. He did not have a lot of friends in the criminal circle and as a fairly easily recognised Jonin, his journey to the Hokage tower had not been an easy one. Kakashi`s rigorous training was built around this situation.
The stoic man did not argue further and simply walked across the roof and dropped down to land on a balcony with a large sliding glass door which led into the living room, the Hokage followed. Once inside, Tsunade took a seat on a large worn sofa.
Kakashi rested against the closed glass door and took in Tsunade's appearance. Despite her age Jutsu that made her skin appear flawless, she looked exhausted and haggard. Her long blonde pigtails had been messily retied, kinks and stray strands in abundance. The green jacket she usually wore had faded splashes of blood at the front, anyone else wouldn't have noticed, but Kakashi's keen eye could see the fray of the fabric in places where Tsunade had frantically tried to scrub the blood off.
She shifted to rested her elbows on her knees and rubbed her eyes; Kakashi's gaze instantly went to her hands.
Usually Tsunade had well kept nails with neat red polish but now Kakashi could see the colour was patchy and scratched. Her cuticles were torn and absent in places and the skin was an angry red. The lines on her hands seemed deeper and more defined almost giving away her age.
Tsunade looked up to see Kakashi looking at her hands without an ounce of judgement.
"I can never seem to wash away all the blood." She said looking at his dark onyx coloured eye and then to her hands. He nodded in response. He knew understood. Once your hands were responsible for spilling blood they never seemed clean thereafter. Almost as if you haven`t been scrubbing them for hours, almost as if you had just freshly killed someone. The need to be rid of that persistent stain of blood only intensifies when you are a healer, forever haunted by those you couldn't save.
"How are your other injuries and chakra?" The blonde said, quickly changing the subject for her own sake.
"I'm fine; my muscles are tired."
Tsunade nodded, sitting up straighter and putting herself in medic mode. "Sit down and don`t move unless I tell you to."
He unusually complied; his reputation for his behaviour in hospital was not a good one, especially in Konoha but even as far afield as the Land of Moon. On that particular mission he had overused his Sharigan and was bed bound in hospital for two weeks. It would of been two days if he had had it his way but they somehow managed to keep him sedated for most of the time. Eventually they told him to leave because doing push ups in bed was disruptive to other patients and the impressionable young nurses. Kakashi`s amusement at this memory soon turned solemn when he remembered that was the time Sakura had lost her first patient all those years ago.
Kakashi was snapped out of his memory. The blinding light being shone in his right eye made it water slightly as Tsunade gently moved his eyelid, her trained eyes examining the minute details.
He could smell the blood on her clothes now. The heavy metallic musk clung to her. Kakashi wondered if the Hokage had showered since the battle or even rested at all.
A little time had passed as Tsunade examined his eyes, looked at his stitched injuries and measured his chakra levels; as routine as any old check up.
"I want to look at your Sharingan while it is in use. I need you to use your Tsukuyomi technique on me for a few seconds and I will monitor your chakra and assess the damage with my chakra." The Hokage said nonchalantly as she put away her small kit bag into her sleeve.
Kakashi thought she was going a little overboard in her examination; he had arguably been a lot worse off in the previous occasions he had exhausted his chakra. He couldn`t even move after his encounter with Itachi when he had infiltrated the Leaf village. Since then he had trained himself harder than ever.
Kakashi casually nodded in agreement and readjusted in his seat next to Tsunade; she gently placed her palm over his left eye and eased her glowing green chakra into his skin. She moved her hand and looked directly into the blood coloured eye and focused on the black spinning tomoe.
Tsunade found herself in a similar setting; the living room of Kakashi's shared accommodation, however, the scene was painted in a polarized inversion of red and black.
"Ok, we can talk properly now." The blonde medic said.
Kakashi paused.
"What do you mean Tsunade-sama?"
"I can't trust anyone anymore." Tsunade stated, half regaining her normal feisty demeanor yet her subtle worn appearance remained.
"What do you mean by that? You can trust Shizune." He didn't expect the Hokage to say something like that.
"She betrayed me when she went to the elders for advice on Naruto leaving the village for missions, there's nothing to say she can't do something like that again."
"There's nothing to say she will." Kakashi countered.
A moment of silence passed between the two. Kakashi wasn't one to press for conversation, he patiently waits for the other person to be ready to talk; this didn't help Tsunade in the least.
She let out a long sigh. "What is it you wanted to report to me Kakashi?"
"Ah. Well, it's about the attack and the intel I gathered."
"Have you told anyone else?"
"No Tsunade-sama."
Her shoulders slumped slightly as she was relieved to hear this. "Good, I almost don't want you to tell me either, information is not safe these days."
Kakashi paused to contemplate this but decided it would still be more beneficial to share what he thought. A little time had passed in the polarized living room; eerily silent, the darkness felt suffocating.
"The enemy has used a transportation barrier, as you know, to allow them to remain undetected. The concerning thing is the number of Shinobi and their origins; there were rogue Ninja from all of the surrounding countries. Civilians too, I don't know why they were there, if only to pour oil onto the field. The apparent leader had his mind tampered with so no intel could be extracted, only vague images. Each wave of enemy seemed to have their own leader as such which poses the question as to who is behind all of this."
Kakashi ran a hand through his silver hair and continued relaying his information.
"Sai and I were at the barrier when the second wave transported; Sai didn't move out of the way in time and was surrounded by enemy. I saw people looking at him and they didn't act suspicious of him or seem fazed. This leads me to believe they have either seen him before or they have at least seen the uniform before."
Tsunade cringed at this as she knew what Kakashi was insinuating.
"I suspect you know what I'm trying to get at. I trust Sai, and I know his abilities are the same if not better than mine, he must have been able to sense what I sensed. It is possible he intended for me to come to this conclusion by purposefully not getting out of the way."
"Enough Kakashi, don't say anything to anyone and do not even talk to me about this again. it is bad enough that Sai knows you know." Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose and furrowed her brows. "We have to be careful and be on your guard at all times, do not say anything important unless we are in this Jutsu. Release it now."
Tsunade stood, her mood had turned considerably sour as she put her weight on one leg and crossed her arms.
"Tsunade-sama, you haven`t explained what is going on, how can I help you if you don`t tell me the situation." He also stood as wandered back over to rest on the glass window; the scene was even more terrifying. Uncertainty, fear, curiosity and deathly black shrouded the atmosphere.
"The more you know the more danger you are in, there are strange things that keep happening and I think I am being targeted. Thats all I will say, now release the Jutsu before I get angry."
The polarized colours returned to normal in an instant and the pair were back on the sofa like when the examination had begun. To any onlookers Kakashi's jutsu had only lasted a couple of seconds, unknowing of the weight of the conversation the two Shinobi had had. Tsunade removed her chakra from her Jonin`s eye and stood up, Kakashi saw the back of her green jacket and the shredded cloth where she had been stabbed.
"Your eye needs careful monitoring, there is damage in the nerves surrounding the eye, only use that eye if you absolutely have to, come see me if you get any blurriness". The Hokage said in her usual stern tone.
"Yes Tsunade-sama."
"You've proved your worth as a Shinobi yet again Kakashi, I've heared nothing but good reports about your performance on the battle field."
"Everyone gave their all, I only did the same."
Only Kakashi would numb down his role within the Leaf village. He was a former ANBU, team leader, division leader; a figure head within the ranks but more importantly a prime example of what a Shinobi should be; he had his flaws but they never got in the way of his duty to the village.
His dedication to the village always took place over his own health and life; seeking to report important information before receiving treatment. He had done the very same thing after a risky ANBU mission, going straight to the Third Hokage only to be refused until he was healed. At that time he had felt relief, but this time he felt like he wished that medical bunk had swallowed him so he wouldn`t have to get involved. What ever was going on he was going to get to the bottom of it and he knew it would consume his every waking thought from now on.
"How can Konoha's finest be rewarded?" She asked the lazy man, he now reclined on the sofa with his head leaning up towards the ceiling.
"Stop talking about me like that?" He said with a light-hearted tone, one hand scratching the back of his head. He was uncomfortable receiving praise like that. "Perhaps you could summon my family back home?"
"What is this village to you Kakashi?"
"The village is a part of me; I give my life to it." She nodded at his response.
"Everyone is gathering to honour the fallen, be at the front promptly." She quickly performed the hand signs and disappeared in a swirl of smoke.
The pale sky slowly turned dark to signal that it was early evening. A large crowd had gathered on the top of the Hokage tower, civilians and Shinobi mixed and gathered, the low hum of indistinguishable conversation could be heard. Lanterns illuminated the scene, painting a yellow glow across the group, fireflies danced among the lights and cicadas sang in the distance.
Kakashi approached from a nearby roof, dressed in his funeral robes as everyone was and looked to see Naruto's bright blonde hair, standing out in a sea of black and grey. Naruto was standing on a large raised platform alongside Shikamaru and Gai. Kakashi leaped down and landed silently next to his former student and nodded in greeting to the other two.
Kakashi looked at the crowd and could see a mix of emotions on the faces before him; some grief stricken, others standing proudly but with dried tear tracks, others with hands on their comrades shoulders and others smiling at a cherished memory or in joke of some sorts.
The copy ninja noticed one young brown haired Shinobi amongst the crowd pointing at him and talking quietly to his friend. Kakashi made no reaction at discovering he was the topic of a conversation. He couldn't recognise who it was that had pointed at him but knew the person next to him was a Chunnin.
"He led our division; we were on the front line and everything. Look at this!" The brown haired ninja parted his black robes slightly to reveal a large jagged scar across his chest.
The other ninja looked amused and asked "Were you scared being at the front?"
"I was unbelievably scared! But Hatake-san just looked so calm and didn't seem fazed, it chilled me out. He moves so fast your eyes can't follow..."
Their conversation was cut short as Tsunade made her way to the platform area through a partition in the crowd. Danzo and the elders slowly followed.
The hum of conversation slowly muted. Tsunade looked like a different person from the one Kakashi met before; her hair was neatly tied, her attire had no frays and blood stains were absent. Her nails had been repainted and she had clearly healed her cuticles and the skin around her nails looked less angry. Kakashi could still smell it though, that was the same coat as before, disguised by a Jutsu. He wondered if anyone else could smell it, it would surely make civilians wretch but he waved that thought off as his sense of smell on par with his trusted summons.
The blonde medic stood strongly on the raised platform in front of the crowd of civilian and ninja. Danzo had skulked off to the opposite side of where Kakashi stood, the elders soon followed him.
"We all know why we are here. We are honouring our fallen comrades; let us remember that they did not die in vain. The village is still ours, our homes and loved ones are safe. Together we repelled the enemy and we fought bravely. I know everyone here would give their life willingly for the sake of the village so let us celebrate the lives of the people we have lost and never forget their legacy. Now, let us have a minutes silence to honour our friends." Tsunade bowed her head and closed her eyes, Kakashi saw her visibly breathe out a sigh of relief.
The silent crowd bowed their heads, even the cicadas seemed to hush their song. Most of those that gathered stood still, but the occasional hunched shoulders moved up and down; soundless crying.
The minute passed, Kakashi looked up to see that Tsunade was very tense, frozen with her head bowed. Kakashi reacted on impulse and stepped forward.
"It is painful when someone dies, but they did not die for nothing, they have left something important behind and it is in all of us, let our Will of Fire grow and restore this village back to the greatness it was before." Kakashi took of his headband and held it to his chest. "To Konoha."
The ninja of the crowd followed suit, civilians put their hands to their chest and an echo of 'To Konoha' reverberated across the cemetery. This was followed by the slow procession of placing white chrysanthemums in front of the portraits of the many fallen Leaf Ninja continued until the area cleared.
Calm.
This chapter is a bit short but the rest will be a lot longer. Can you guess the plot? :P Happy wednesday, the next chapter is almost complete yet again and don't worry this is a KakaSaku fic and for now its kinda all about Kakashi.