Chapter Seven

He noticed when the blond woke up. He had only managed a light doze himself, he had been somewhere between awake and asleep when the arm wrapped around his waist tensed up suddenly, and then went boneless once again.

During the night, the blond had wriggled ever closer to Kakashi, until he could feel the blond plastered against his back, his face buried into Kakashi's neck, blowing soft breaths against him.

Kakashi could have stayed like that forever, despite the confusion fogging his mind. The blond was warm and comfortable, and Kakashi felt safer in his arms than he had for a long while.

He probably felt that way because he couldn't separate the blond from the Yondaime in his mind. But right then, he didn't care. He felt warm and snug and pleasantly satisfied. He never wanted to move again.

Even though he knew the blond was awake, he didn't move. He didn't want to have to get up, he didn't want to peel the man off him, which he would have to do if the blond knew he was awake. So he lay perfectly still.

His heart sped up slightly when the man tried to wriggle even closer to him. Never mind that they were already so close they might have been suctioned together. He felt the blond rub his cheek against him, like some sort of cat, and sigh into the back of his neck.

There was a certain part of the blonde's anatomy that was suddenly pressed up against Kakashi's ass. A certain part of his anatomy that was more awake than the rest of him. Kakashi realised at about the same moment that the blond did, the man went stock still and tense, he was holding his breath even as Kakashi tried to keep his even so he wouldn't give himself away.

But the feeling of the man's erection against him caused heat to pool between Kakashi's legs. He felt as though he had been set on fire, flames were spiralling downwards throughout his body.

He was equally as ashamed as he was turned on. He body was betraying him, he didn't want to be attracted to the man!

The arm around his waist was gone, the warmth against his back had vanished, and it left Kakashi feeling cold and slightly hollowed out. The blond had jumped up from the bed, and after a moment Kakashi heard the door open.

He was sitting up and staring across the room in time to see the door swing shut. The blond had run out, and Kakashi was left with compound disappointment. He tried to shake the feeling away, but he couldn't.

He dropped back against the pillow and slid his eyes shut.

When the blond came back Kakashi had managed to get his body back under control. There were still some tendrils of desire curling loosely though him, but it was a lazy sort of longing that wasn't hard to ignore.

Until he looked at the blond, who was wearing only his pants and was dripping wet. The tendrils of desire tightened within him. His whole body throbbed.

"Heh," the blond chuckled nervously, and scratched the back of his head, "you're awake. I just, um… went for a shower."

Water was running tiny rivers over his chest, Kakashi's eyes followed them all the way down his torso until they reached the waistband of his pants. His hair was burnished gold in it's wetness.

Kakashi couldn't find his voice.

"The other day, when I went to sleep," the blond said, still scratching the back of his head absently and staring at the floor, "you weren't there when I woke up, and I thought you'd left me. So… it was nice to, uh… to wake up with you here."

It was that admission, more than the sight of him, that sparked fireworks in the pit of Kakashi's stomach. All of the blood in Kakashi's body seemed to change direction and surge to the same place.

He leapt up and dashed to the door. He was down the hallway, in the bathroom, and under the ice cold spray of the shower before the blond could say anything else.

oO0Oo

Thankfully, the blond was fully dressed when Kakashi walked back in. He was sitting cross legged the floor, with his back resting against the bed. Kakashi's pack was on the floor before him. The blond had a kunai in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Kakashi asked. He had the undeniable urge to rush over there and snatch the weapon away from the blond, so that he wouldn't hurt himself. When had he turned into the man's mother?

"I remember these," the blond said, his eyes flickered up from the blade to pin Kakashi across the room.

"What do you mean?" Kakashi frowned.

The blond flipped the kunai in his hand, and flicked his wrist.

The blade thudded into the leg of the table, dead on.

Kakashi blinked back at the man, he suddenly felt a little nervous.

"Who am I?" the blond asked. His face was set, he looked more like the Yondaime than he had since Kakashi had found him.

"I don't know," Kakashi replied quietly.

"Don't lie," the blond warned, eyes narrowing dangerously, "you know who I am but you're not telling me. Why?"

Kakashi sighed. He had known this conversation would come around. He ran a hand through his damp hair and licked his lips.

"I don't know who you are," Kakashi replied, "but I know who you look like."

The blonde raised an eyebrow, "explain."

Kakashi walked to the table and pulled the kunai from the leg.

"You look exactly like my teacher," he admitted, staring down at the weapon rather than into the blonde's face, "exactly like him."

The blond frowned, "that was why you called me 'sensei'."

Kakashi nodded, "do you remember what they did to you? At the lab?"

The blonde's frown deepened, "they didn't do much. I woke up there and I couldn't remember anything. They just took blood samples. Why, what does it matter?"

Kakashi slid down to the floor, mirroring the blonde's posture.

"They… did this to you," he said, "the reason you can't remember anything, and the reason you look like my sensei. They did it."

The blond blinked, his frown became one of confusion, "why?"

"I don't know," Kakashi admitted, "that's why we're here, one of the scientists came here after the explosion, I'm going to find out what he did to you and why."

The blond simply stared at him for a few moments longer. He looked so focused, so like the man whose image he had been given, that Kakashi was melting on the inside.

"Do you know where this scientist is?" the blond asked.

Kakashi nodded, "he's staying in a house further up the mountain."

"Then let's go," the blond rose to his feet in one single, fluid motion.

"You… want to come?" Kakashi had planned to go alone, to leave the blond at the inn while he got some answers.

There was no room for argument in the blonde's expression, "they're my answers more than your's. I want to know what they did to me. I want to know who I am."

Kakashi nodded and pushed himself to his feet.

"Let's go then."

oO0Oo

Kakashi turned the corner and frowned suspiciously at the blond, who was waiting for him, leaning against the rock wall, looking down over the village.

"You weren't this fast yesterday," he accused.

The blond smiled slightly and shrugged, "I didn't have boots yesterday."

Kakashi huffed and walked past him. The blond had asked him what direction they were going in, and Kakashi had pointed. Then the man was gone, just like that.

Kakashi felt suitable shown up. And slightly apprehensive.

The row of ornately decorated houses came into view. Kakashi had found out that Matsura's daughter owned the one at the far end, and that the scientist was currently staying there.

"Which one?" the blond asked.

Kakashi refused to reply. The blond would only shoot off again and leave him behind, and Kakashi didn't want the man to approach the scientist alone.

The blond followed when he leapt up and over the high wall surrounding the house. The garden was immaculately kept, and Kakashi smirked to himself when he saw the blond kick viciously at the begonias by the wall.

"What did the flowers do to you?" Kakashi asked light-heartedly.

"Nothing," he replied, "but I was thinking about the person who planted them."

With a house this big, someone was probably hired to plant them. But Kakashi didn't mention that.

Kakashi knew that the scientist was alone. There was no one else staying at the house, and the scientist was planning to move on within the next couple of days. He wasn't worried about finding the man, or getting answers out of him. But he was worried about what those answers would be, and how the blond following him closely would react to them.

Maybe he should have insisted upon coming alone.

"Wait," Kakashi halted on the porch and turned back to the blond. He could hear movement from behind the partition, all he needed to do was slide inside, but he was suddenly nervous about letting the scientist see the blond. The lab technician had assumed the man was dead, perhaps it would be better if everyone was left to think that.

"Wait here," Kakashi hissed quietly.

The blond frowned, "what?"

"He's right inside," Kakashi explained, "you'll be able to hear everything, but I don't want you to be seen."

"Why?" he asked.

"Just trust me, alright," Kakashi pleaded, "wait here."

The blond sighed and folded his arms, and Kakashi stepped further along the porch and slipped in through where the partition opened in silence.

The man sitting at the low table was smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper. He didn't look up when Kakashi swept inside, he didn't notice him until Kakashi's shadow fell over the paper he was reading.

"Wha…" the man leapt to his feet, the paper forgotten, the pipe tumbling to the floor, "who are you? What are you doing in my house?"

"Are you Matsura?" Kakashi asked.

"Who wants to know?"

Kakashi snatched a kunai from his belt and twirled it around his finger.

"I do."

The man went pale.

"W-what do you want?"

"Just to ask you a few questions," Kakashi replied, "sit down."

He did so, sagging to the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut.

"So," Kakashi stopped twirling the kunai, settling for just holding it within the older man's line of sight, "are you Matsura?"

The man nodded.

"You're a scientist?" he asked.

Again the man nodded.

"And you worked for Orochimaru?"

Matsura went even paler than he already was. Kakashi heard movement from outside but ignored it, the scientist didn't seem to notice.

"What is this about?" Matsura asked, "what do you want?"

"I want to know what sort of experiments you were conducting," Kakashi replied.

"Why?" the man squawked, he was becoming increasingly agitated, "what are you going to do? I had no choice, Orochimaru would have killed me…"

"I'm not going to do anything to you," Kakashi replied calmly, "I just want you to answer my questions."

"I… I didn't have any choice," the man gasped, shaking his head.

"That wasn't what I asked," Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the man and began spinning the kunai around his finger again.

Matsura's eyes widened to comical proportions, "o-okay, the experiments… well, there were quite a few…"

"I'm talking about experiments upon humans," Kakashi clarified.

"Most of them were on humans!" the man yelped, "this is Orochimaru we're talking about!"

Kakashi frowned in irritation, "fine. An experiment that changed the subjects appearance and erased their memories."

The man frowned, "you mean… the edo tensei experiments?"

Kakashi frowned, "what did those experiments entail?"

The scientist sucked in a deep breath, "complex stuff," he mused. He seemed more comfortable now that he was talking about a subject he was familiar with. "Orochimaru wanted a body, a specific body, to transfer his consciousness into."

"…and?" Kakashi prompted impatiently.

"Well, he eventually changed his mind," the scientist went on, "he decided upon another body, an Uchiha I believe, but he allowed us to continue the experiments."

"Orochimaru was already capable of performing the edo tensei technique," Kakashi replied.

"Yes," the man nodded and smiled conspiratorially, "but the experiment was only based upon the edo tensei technique, there were lots of other factors involved. He didn't just want a corpse that resembled a deceased individual, he wanted the Yondaime Hokage brought back to life."

Kakashi froze. The Yondaime Hokage brought back to life. He turned around, subconsciously, to look back towards where the partition opened up onto the porch, where he knew the blond was standing.

"We had almost perfected it too," the scientist said whimsically, "the last time, the soul actually remained in the vessel."

Kakashi barely heard him, he was still staring towards the partition.

"You mean," Kakashi said softly, "you brought him back to life?"

"Incredible isn't it," Matsura replied smugly, "of course, we needed some of his blood, which was quite difficult to come by, and living people had to be sacrificed to…"

The partition slammed further open. The blond was standing in the opening, glaring into the room, at the man sat in front of Kakashi.

"I died?" he hissed, "I was dead?"

The scientist's mouth fell open. He stared, wide eyed, at the blond before him.

"You survived," he gasped, "oh…"

Kakashi turned back to the scientist when he saw him clamber to his feet. Matsura's eyes were locked onto the blond, a grin was tugging at his lips.

"This is…" he let out a breathy laugh, "where did you find him?" he asked Kakashi, sparing him a glance before looking back at the blond, "I thought for sure he had been killed, this is wonderful!"

"Wonderful?" Kakashi echoed, "how the hell is it wonderful? Who is he?"

The scientist looked towards him, an incredulous look upon his face.

"Don't be a fool boy," he frowned, "look at him! Who do you think he is? He's Namikaze Minato!"

Kakashi grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck, "that is NOT Namikaze Minato!" he yelled, "Namikaze Minato is dead!"

"He was dead!" the scientist cried, trying to back away from Kakashi, shaking slightly, "we brought him back! I've been trying to tell you!"

"Who is he?" Kakashi repeated, pointing to the blond across the room, "the man you experimented upon? The person Orochimaru sent to you? Who is he?"

The scientist shook his head, "I… I don't know, just a Sound shinobi that angered Orochimaru, I don't know who he was. But that isn't him any more, his consciousness was erased the moment we transplanted the Yondaime's soul into his body! We turned him into Namikaze Minato!"

Kakashi shoved the scientist away from him. He didn't know what to think. His teacher was dead. Had been dead for years. He had been trying to convince himself that the blond wasn't the Yondaime, and now this man was trying to tell him that the blond was…

He turned back towards the blond. His sensei? But his blood turned to ice.

The blond was gone.

"No," the scientist wailed softly, "quick! Go find him! Bring him back!"

"Like hell," Kakashi growled as he stalked towards the porch.

"But I created him!" the scientist protested as Kakashi strode out onto the porch, "I brought him back! He's my experiment, you can't take him from me! He's mine!"

Kakashi turned back, the kunai in his hand was suddenly at the scientist's throat.

"You said that he's Namikaze Minato," he spoke lowly.

"Y-yes," Matsura replied.

"Then he isn't your's."

Kakashi whipped around and left the man behind.

They had brought him back. His sensei was back. His sensei was alive.

He had to find him.