Chapter Four
It was dark inside the cliff. The kind of inky blackness that swallows all that touches it. Reaching the gaping wound in the rock face had been more difficult than Kakashi had anticipated, the rocks had been claimed by the ocean, and walking over the water was almost impossible with the kilter of the waves.
He was dripping when he managed to climb into the cavern. His clothes were clinging possessively to him, the salt in the water itched. The rock beneath his feet was slick with water and seaweed, and it was almost impossible to see even a foot in front of him in the darkness.
He uncovered his left eye before he climbed further in. The waves were lashing against the opening to the cavern, sending a frigid spray inside. Upon first glance the cavern was simply that, a hollow carved into the cliff by the sea. But the ground beneath Kakashi's feet was smooth, and the narrow passageway that delved further into the darkness was a perfect arch.
It hadn't been made by any natural means. The rock had been carved away.
His heart was thudding in his chest, surging adrenalin through his veins. He felt tense, so wound up he might snap. He didn't know what he was going to find further in the darkness, but he was weighed down with anxiety, and it grew with each step he took.
If he hadn't been straining all of his senses, he would have fallen over the body in the passageway. It was so dark he couldn't see it, but he knew it was there. He knelt down to turn the corpse over, and even though he couldn't see it's face, his heart dropped to his stomach when his fingers came upon soft, spiky hair.
There was a dull light further ahead. Kakashi drank in a lungful of air before he straightened up and followed the soft glow of a lamp further into the cliff.
The passageway had collapsed further in, crumbling in on itself. But the light was pouring out from the doorway on Kakashi's right. It was pale and eerie, it cast dancing shadows upon the walls of the room.
There was a metal slab in the centre, with a body lying still under the lamplight, covered by a white sheet.
He knew there was someone else in the room, even before the clang of metal upon the tiles bounced off the walls.
He was on the other side of the table in a heartbeat, holding the only other living being in the room by the neck and dragging him to his feet from where he had been crouched on the floor.
"Stop," the man gasped as he tried to scratch Kakashi's fingers from his throat, "I didn't do anything, I'm only a technician!"
When he was standing, pressed back into the table with the body upon it, Kakashi loosened his fingers, but didn't let go.
"Who are you?" Kakashi narrowed his eyes down at the man, "what are you doing here?"
The other man licked his lips nervously, looking everywhere but at Kakashi's face. His hair looked muddy brown under the dim light, it hung limply around his face.
"You…" he rasped, "you're not… you're not on of the test subjects…"
Kakashi released the man's neck, and he breathed a relieved sigh until he saw the glint of a kunai in Kakashi's hand. His eyes widened, he held his hands up in surrender as he scrambled around the table to put the corpse between himself and the Copy-nin.
"What test subjects?" Kakashi asked. There was no room for argument in his tone.
The man grinned nervously, it was more a grimace really, it cast a sickly hue over his face.
"I'm just the technician," he said again, "I just make sure the equipment works, I don't have anything to do with all the other stuff…"
He paled significantly when Kakashi let out a low, impatient growl.
"Okay, okay!" he stammered, "the test subjects… they get brought here, the scientists run experiments on them. Don't ask me what kind, I don't get told anything, it's all classified!"
"What are you still doing here?" Kakashi asked as he glanced around. There were worktops lined up against the walls, dotted with scrolls and test tubes and strange coloured liquid in odd shaped jars.
"Well, everyone left," the man shrugged and chewed his lip, staring wide eyed at the kunai Kakashi was holding, "and some of this equipment is worth a fortune so…"
"What happened here?" Kakashi interrupted him, strolling around the table towards the man.
"Y-you mean last night?" he replied as he stumbled away from Kakashi, around to the other side of the table, "I'm not sure exactly… one of the test subjects went crazy and then BOOM!"
Kakashi raised an eyebrow, still walking calmly around the table, in a slow paradigm of a chase.
"He blew himself up," the man said quickly, "I think.. and then everything went to hell, the other test subjects got out, and the scientists ran away, like the filthy cowards that they are."
"What kind of experiments take place here?" Kakashi asked as he twirled the kunai lazily around his finger.
"I'm just a technician!" the man squawked and he continued to shuffle around the table. He stumbled as Kakashi followed, slamming his hand onto the metal slab to steady himself and jarring the body. A single grey coloured arm fell free of the sheet and dangled down over the edge of the table.
"You must have some idea," Kakashi cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes.
The man shook his head, "all I know is that people get brought here, they get sedated, the scientists take them away, and they all come back the same."
Kakashi frowned and stopped following the man around the table.
"The same?" he asked, "what do you mean, the same as what?"
The man grinned again, a humourless grimace, and looked down at the white sheet covering the body between them, "the same as him," he replied, before taking the corner of the sheet and pulling it away.
All of the air in Kakashi's chest expelled itself in one gasp. He staggered back, eyes fixed upon the face of the corpse in front of him. He felt sick to his stomach, but strangely empty. He couldn't comprehend what he was looking at.
"It's just a dead body," the other man in the room called out, "I'd have thought you'd seen one or two before."
Kakashi shook his head absently, trying to get what he was seeing to make sense. The man on the slab had been dead for days. His chest had been stitched together after an autopsy, leaving garish red lines over his greyish skin. His hair was bright blonde, it fell about his face in rakish spikes.
"Who…" Kakashi swallowed past the bile rising in this throat, "who is that?"
The other man shrugged, "like I said, people get brought in, the scientists do something to them, and they all come out looking like him," he pointed to the image of Namikaze Minato on the table, "they all die though."
Kakashi tore his eyes away from the body and glanced up at the technician, "they die?"
He nodded, "usually after a few hours. The last one survived about a week I think, but then last night happened. He's probably dead too."
Kakashi couldn't breathe. He moved closer to the corpse, clutched by an insurmountable horror as he looked down into the empty face of his sensei.
The corpse had brown eyes.
"Why?" Kakashi asked, his voice was shaking as his grip tightened on his kunai, "what is the point of these experiments?"
The man stepped back from the table, fear written into his face at the abrupt change in Kakashi's demeanour, "I don't know, it's all classified."
"Who was in charge?" Kakashi growled angrily, glowering across the body towards the other man, "who was doing this?"
The other man swallowed and backed up towards the wall, "it was Orochimaru-sama that supplied the test subjects," he yelped as Kakashi rounded the table and stalked towards him, "Matsura was the scientist in charge, but he left last night."
Kakashi halted a couple of strides away from the man. His blood had gone cold.
"Orochimaru," he hissed.
The other man nodded, "he stopped sending test subjects a while ago though. The scientists were running out."
Kakashi snapped his arm out and brought the blade of the kunai to rest against the sallow skin of the man's neck.
"Where can I find this Matsura?"
oO0Oo
He looked down at the blanket at his feet and felt his heart turn cold. The bandages he had used to tie the blonde's hands together were sprawled across the ground. The man was gone.
Kakashi stepped back from the blanket. Each breath he took shook slightly. He didn't want to be worried. He wanted to deny the thin tendril of fear that suddenly threaded through him with the blonde's absence, but he couldn't. He kept seeing the corpse back at the cliff, his sensei's face: slack and lifeless. The blond he had left in the cave may not be the Yondaime, but he didn't want to see the man dead either.
He had to find him. He had to make sure he was alright.
Kakashi whipped around, and stopped dead.
"You said you'd be back before I woke up," the blond glowered up at him, silhouetted against the dawn light that stretched into the cave, blue eyes flashing dangerously.
Kakashi couldn't fight the relieved smile that crept onto his lips. He had gotten used to seeing that face again, he didn't know what he would do if he lost the man all over again.
His smile fell away. It wasn't the Yondaime. He couldn't loose him again because he hadn't gotten him back. The man before him was simply an imitation, a lie. He was just a test subject for some inhumane experiment.
But that thought set off a pang throughout his being, his heart clenched as he looked down at the blonde's angry expression. He wasn't Namikaze Minato, but whoever he was, he was a victim in all of this. He wore the face of a dead man because of what had been done to him, and it caused compassion to flare up inside Kakashi even as the blond stepped towards him and scowled.
"Where have you been Kakashi?" he snapped, "I was worried about you!"
Kakashi staggered back, blinking in surprise at the man's outburst. He sounded so like the Yondaime right then that the ache in Kakashi was almost physical.
Then Kakashi glanced over his shoulder to the bandages upon the ground, and he frowned back at the man in confusion.
"Why are you still here?" he asked.
"Don't ask stupid questions," the blond jabbed a finger into his chest as he closed the distance between them, "I told you I…" the angry glint in his eyes faded slightly as he looked down at where he had jabbed Kakashi, "you're soaking."
He stalked around Kakashi and swept up the blanket from the ground. Kakashi found himself wrapped up in the blanket and sitting on the floor, with the blond rubbing warmth into his arms through the material before he could protest.
"Idiot," the blond muttered as his hands moved feverishly up and down Kakashi's arms, "you'll freeze to death if you're not careful."
Kakashi couldn't quite catch his breath. The blond was crouching over him, he felt surrounded by the man, and as the hands rubbing his arms slowed down, the blonde's eyes softened as he looked down at Kakashi.
For a moment Kakashi was thirteen again, he was looking up at his sensei after being gently chastised for doing something foolish. The longing that had curled up inside him was almost tangible, it was like a lead weight in his gut.
"I told you I wouldn't run away," the man said softly, "I don't have anywhere else to go. I want to stay with you."
"Why?" Kakashi whispered as the blond continued to warm him.
"Because…" he smiled and looked away from Kakashi's gaze, "you're Kakashi. I don't know why that's an adequate answer. It just is. You're Kakashi and I want to stay with you."
Kakashi shook his head slightly, confused by the blonde's answer. Nothing was making any sense to him. The blond kept behaving as though he knew Kakashi, but it wasn't possible, they had never met. But he had known when Kakashi was lying about his name. He had called him 'brat', and despite the fact that Kakashi had tied him up and held him captive and drugged him, he trusted Kakashi.
"Nn," the blond shook his head in irritation and pulled the blanket away, "they need to come off, they're soaking."
Before Kakashi could ask what he meant, his flak jacket was unzipped and being tugged from his shoulders, and his shirt was being pushed up his chest.
"Hey!" Kakashi grabbed the man's wrists and pulled them away from the sopping material. His heart had exploded inside his chest. Every fibre of his being had suddenly heated up when the man had taken hold of his shirt.
When he pulled the man's hands away, the blond lost what little balance he had had crouching before Kakashi. He fell forwards with an "oomph" until his chin hit Kakashi's chest and he was sprawled half on top of him.
Kakashi had yet to let go of the man's wrists.
The blond turned his eyes up to Kakashi's. Even through the dampness of his shirt Kakashi could feel the other's body heat. It made him want to squirm where he sat, but he was frozen solid.
His heartbeat was a staccato in his chest. Surely the blond could feel it, being pressed against him like that. Kakashi could hear his heartbeat throbbing in his ears, his breath was coming in short gasps.
He could feel the blonde's pulse where he was holding onto his wrists. It was speeding up with each passing second.
"Sorry," the blond said softly, but as he spoke his eyes skittered down over Kakashi's face and landed somewhere close to his lips. His blue eyes went wide for an instant, before he scrambled back, snatching his wrists away from Kakashi.
Kakashi couldn't speak. His voice had turned to clay inside his throat.
"Just…" the blond swallowed, he seemed slightly out of breath, a pink hue had crept into his face, "just take off your wet clothes. Do you have any spare ones?"
"You're wearing them," Kakashi replied. His voice sounded a little strained, even to his own ears. He felt hot, like he had been running all day and had only just sat down to rest.
"Oh," the man said softly. He was sitting across from Kakashi, but he looked poised to flee, ready to leap up and escape, like a wild animal trapped in a corner.
Kakashi was adrift with the desire to drag the man back over to him. There were electric butterflies dancing in his stomach, but rather than put him off touching the blond, they seemed to urge him onwards. He wanted to feel the man's body heat again, to feel his pulse at his fingertips.
But he forced himself to keep very still. He suddenly felt ashamed of the way he had reacted, he could feel flames in his cheeks.
"We…" he swallowed, "we'll be leaving soon, so it doesn't matter. They'll dry on the way."
The blond blinked. It took him a moment to register what Kakashi had just said, he looked as though he had just awoken from a dream, but he wasn't sure if he was entirely awake yet.
"Leaving?" he breathed, "why? Where are we going?"
Kakashi suddenly wanted to be anywhere but alone with the man. There was something crawling over his skin, the longing that had curled in his gut had uncoiled itself and was writhing over his flesh. He felt hot and uncomfortable and embarrassed and desperate all at the same time.
He turned away from the blonde's eyes and looked towards the horizon through the cave entrance, where he sun was rolling upwards.
"There's a village a few miles north," he replied, "there's a man there that I need to ask a few questions."
He could see the man nod out of the corner of his eye.
"When do we leave?" the blond asked.
Kakashi turned to look at him then, and he felt a fresh wave of heat billow through him.
He was filled with restless energy. He needed to get outside, to get out of the atmosphere of the cave.
"Now," he replied, as he rose to his feet.
