Chapter Nine: Spirals of Flame
'I'll never let this go, but I can't find the words to tel you I don't want to be alone, but now I feel like I don't know you.' Never Let This Go by Paramore
"I CAN'T BELIEVE we actually did it," confessed Kakashi, wiping a weary hand down his face. He glanced over to Jiraiya and his teammates who were standing perhaps twenty yards from him and his father. Sakumo nodded and brought Kakashi's attention back upon himself.
"Neither can I. But, Kakashi, in the event that something should happen to you…. I need you to tell me what your plans are. Or you need to create a failsafe so that I can continue on with your work if you decide to throw your life away like you tried to." Sakumo's voice was grave, wobbling when he came to the part of Kakashi 'throwing his life away.' Kakashi recognized the seriousness of his father's advice and hugged him fiercely.
He laughed into his father's chest, saying softly, "You idiot, I can't die. I have too many things to do."
"I wish it were that simple," admitted Sakumo, pulling back so he could ruffle Kakashi's hair. "Listen to the customs here…. They might prove to be very important."
Kakashi stared at his father, struck by the odd mysteriousness of his father's voice. "Does this have to do with—"
"Ah, ah, ah! Not telling. You'll see soon enough," chided Sakumo, again relying on mysteriousness as a resource to make Kakashi pay extra special attention to the next few weeks. "All right, I believe Jiraiya wants a word with me and then I've got to get going. Give me a hug, ya little trouble maker."
Kakashi happily obliged his old man and then watched as Jiraiya and his father leapt off through the trees to a more private place for conversation.
"He wonders why we keep getting attacked! The strongest people of our group keep running off and leaving us defenseless," grumbled Genma, his senbon waggling dangerously his scowling lips. Kakashi playfully plucked it free, and twirled it between his fingers.
"We're not defenseless. We're capable of taking care of ourselves. If anything terrible comes our way I'll protect you. That's what a ninja does. He protects his teammates and works with them to accomplish their common goal."
Gai smiled brightly. "Surviving can't be our common goal," he laughed.
"Nope. We protect Konoha."
Kakashi's words, though said lightly, hit an odd key with the other two who fell silent as they considered his meaning. It seemed the most laid-back ninja of Konoha was now the most driven. Though, truthfully, he hadn't been laid back Kakashi in a few years. That persona had died with his older body. This Kakashi, in his own timeline, would have been the straight-laced, driven boy who longed to succeed and live by the rules as his father had not. This Kakashi, the one he was right now… this Kakashi knew better than that.
[.-_-.]
"SO I HEAR that your son is having some troubles," Jiraiya remarked offhandedly. Sakumo, on instinct, recoiled slightly. No matter how that comment was inflicted he couldn't help but feel that it was a jab at his parenting. No father wants to be told those kinds of things as though he didn't notice them already.
"What are you getting at, Jiraiya-sama?" Sakumo was careful to be respectful of the man, even though he was terribly offended at the moment. He was well aware that his honorific came out harsh and sarcastic but he couldn't help himself.
"Nothing, just that your son is having some trouble. You seem a little tense about it. Anything I should know?"
"No." Sakumo mentally reminded himself to play this out carefully. Perhaps if he acted offended enough that would call his character into question and Jiraiya could eventually be let into the loop. As stupid as the man might seem at times, Sakumo knew that was only a front and that the man was quite the genius.
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. "Are you aware that in order for your boy to sleep on field missions Nenshou had to cast a genjutsu on the boy? Every night?"
"No…" admitted Sakumo, his cheeks reddening in both anger and embarrassment. "He has a lot of… stress. He's quite driven and the loss of his mother still hits him pretty hard."
"You don't scream like that at night from losing your mother." Jiraiya's voice was hardened with anger. "I've heard it. If you don't do something I will."
"Understood." Sakumo said before disappearing, leaving behind a small pile of pebbles. Jiraiya nodded in acceptance and resolution before turning on heel and dropping to the ground beneath the trees so that he could walk back to his team. Sakumo stared at him from behind a tree for a few moments before smiling and taking off for Konoha. He'd performed wonderfully, if he said so himself.
[.-_-.]
ONCE UPON A time, magnificent towers had been the focal point of Whirlpool's architecture. That period had long since passed and the buildings were now sprawling, multi-story buildings. The ones that were intact, that is.
The remaining buildings were creamy in color, some with low ceilings and others with high ceilings. The one thing that Kakashi noticed about the buildings as he walked through the streets with his teammates and sensei was that they all had curving lines on them that fashioned into a whirlpool. The roofs were spired, the tiling on each point swirling around in a syphon-like fashion that vastly resembled a whirlpool. It reminded Kakashi of the rug on his living room floor for some reason.
"Jiraiya-sensei, why does everyone look so… hungry?" asked Genma, his voice tainted with apprehension.
"As much as I want to say that they're hungry for my body, I can't. They're starving here. Things aren't going well for them. It's why we're here. Many people from Konoha who had relations with Whirlpool were called out to help but… only a few remain."
Kakashi's ears perked up at the sound of that. 'Maybe you've got some family out here, Naruto,' he thought, his cheers rising in a slight smile. Jiraiya gave him an odd look for smiling at such a grave sentence but Kakashi didn't bother to acknowledge him. He could feel Naruto's joy even though the boy didn't respond. They'd both learned that having conversations while around other people often bread strange facial expressions that made it look like Kakashi was arguing with himself.
"Okay, guys, we need to meet with our client. While I do that, I want you to go to our quarters and put your things away. We'll be here a while. So make sure you organize it. You have two hours to wander about and get acquainted with what remains of the village and then I want you to meet me back here at three so we can start training again, alright?" commanded Jiraiya. He smiled, the red lines that didn't meet his jawline fanning out with cheeks. "Much of the village has been moved underground so you'll need to get a map from one of the people where we're staying and then you need to memorize it. It's not allowed outside of the building."
Kakashi and the others nodded, all of them trotting off to carry out their orders. He was rather excited about the prospect of an underground town. If it looked easy enough he could probably move the ANBU barracks nearer to his house—no, wait. That sounded a bit too reminiscent of Root and Danzo.
A burning heat filled his stomach as he thought about Danzo. Something needed to be done about that man. Gai and Genma exchanged looks, frightened by the small amount of killing intent that Kakashi had been leaking but he chuckled sheepishly and reined it in. "Sorry, I was just thinking about how we were ambushed and I almost lost you guys. It'd be awfully sad to have to walk around by myself."
While it wasn't true that he was thinking about that, as he said it he realized he meant it. It would be terribly sad to have to do this without them. In his own timeline Gai had been like a brother to him and he missed being able to beat the shit out of each other when one felt down in the dumps. They could still spar now, but they couldn't demolish training grounds as they had done before.
Gai smiled at him and Genma clapped a hand onto his shoulder, shaking it lightly before retracing his hand and sighing. "Man, I miss Ebisu like hell but you're a quirky guy to be around, ya know that?"
"Huh? How so?"
"You totally went ham and killed all those bad guys, man! But—" he broke off into a fit of giggles. "Look at this!" He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small scroll from his pocket.
"What's that?" inquired Kakashi, itching his nose.
"Oh, just a little something that Iwa added to their bingo books," Genma jeered in a sing-song voice. "You're already in it."
"I am?" Kakashi snatched the scroll from Genma, opening it so that he could read it. "Hatake Kakashi, son of the White Fang of Konoha. Deemed the… White Skipper? What the fuck! That's not even a cool name! Couldn't I have been the Flicker of Doom or something cool?"
"I 'unno, I don't even know how you do that thing you do!" admitted Genma, laughing so hard that his senbon fell out of his mouth. Even Gai was laughing at him. "But the White Skipper! I just can't get over it!"
Kakashi was forced to endure the taunts for the entirety of the trek around the village. Somehow, he didn't actually mind. It was rather nice to be friends with people who could tease him and he didn't mind. It was nice to have true companionship again after the two and a half years of loneliness.
[.-_-.]
"SO HOW WAS meeting the client?" Genma asked conversationally. He bent over, stretching his fingers down to his toes and then pressed his palms flat against the ground, his fingers fanning out around his hand.
Jiraiya stood up from his stretch, bent backwards, and placed his hands flat on the ground in a perfect backbend. "Ah, it was fine. Sazanami Yawaraka. Apparently she is the sister to the wife of the clan-head of one of the most powerful clans in the village. We're going to be staying with her and her family for the duration of the trip. She seemed interested in meeting you, though she took a particular interest in you, Kakashi. Apparently she knows your father."
Kakashi paused in his stretching, a strange tingle running down his back as he digested that information. What could that possibly mean? He shrugged the thought from his mind because it would do him little good to be distracted by such a thing as that.
"You are all familiar with the water walking technique, correct?" inquired Jiraiya, putting his fingers together so that he could crack them. Everyone but Gai nodded. "Very well. I want you two to learn to manipulate the water. Gai, come with me, I'm going to teach you how to walk on water."
"Wait you're not even going to tell us how to do it!?" shrieked Genma, his senbon tumbling out of his mouth. Kakashi reached out and caught it before it could hit the ground and handed it back to the stunned boy.
He chuckled, pleased that he remembered the basic principles of how to manipulate water. "It's okay. I've never done it before but my father's explained the theory to me." It was subtle lie but it would suffice. Jiraiya probably expected that this would take them a long time to learn.
"How do we do it?" asked Genma, the senbon once again waggling at his lips.
Kakashi took a breath as he remembered how he had learned it. "Well, the quickest way to learn is to directly manipulate the water. However if water isn't your affinity, it's easier to learn how to change your motions in response to the water not change the water's motion in response to you."
Genma was quiet for a moment. "How do you do that?"
"Come here," beckoned Kakashi, trotting over to the edge of the water. "See how it laps at the shore like that?"
"Yeah…"
"We have to move like that with the water. But in order to learn how to do that we have to use still water. Come on, let's go back to the Sazanami complex and use their hot spring to direct the current."
It took them a short twenty minute jog to return to the compound but by the time they were there Genma was more than brimming with anticipation. Kakashi carefully stepped onto the water, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to center himself.
"Relax. Feel the direction of the current. Right now there is no current. Only water bubbling upward. You have to maintain the correct chakra level to stay above the water without being blown off while you project enough chakra into the water to direct your motion. You can spiral the chakra or waver it back and forth—whatever will cause you to move across the surface of the water.
Kakashi knew this wasn't the ideal way to learn, but the bubbling of the water would cause Genma to have even better control over the water by the time they finished the exercise. "Alright, here goes nothing."
He began to painstakingly project chakra into the water, careful to keep the protruding chakra separate from the chakra bolstering the surface of the water. The difference between tree-walking and water-walking was that one had to reinforce the surface of the water with the precise amount of chakra. Any currents or ripples in the water made this harder where the ripples and grooves on tree bark made it easier. In tree-walking, one needed to fill the gaps between the user's foot or shoe, creating an adhesive grip. In water walking, your chakra was just on top of the water's surface, reinforcing the natural tension barrier created by water.
As he began to project his chakra, he began to twist it. If he pushed it down and angled it, it would push him another direction. Kakashi couldn't show off just yet, but in the future he'd learned how to send chakra down into the water, spin it around, and then call it back up to force the water into stilt-like projections that could either launch him into the air or help him dodge attacks. Sakura had taught him how to do that, oddly enough.
Genma clapped when Kakashi began to seemingly slide across the surface. "That's what I'm talking about! Now let me try..."
Kakashi stepped out of the water, standing on the edge of the hot-spring as Genma gleefully bounced across the surface until he stood in the middle. He clasped his hands in front of him, not in a seal, but in a hand-gesture of concentration. The senbon in his mouth twisted furiously as he concentrated. Kakashi was surprised when almost immediately the boy began to slide across the water.
'What the hell, if he had all this ability all along why the hell did he stay a Chunin?' thought Kakashi, wondering if Naruto had any information as to why Genma had never made Jonin.
'He never wanted promotion. He always denied it, opting to stay a Chunin because there are less responsibilities. Maybe you can get him up to par so he's so kick-ass that Sarutobi promotes him without asking whether or not he wants it,' suggested Naruto, his thoughts sounding rather amused. 'I tried for ages.'
Giving the senbon-brandishing boy an appraising look, Kakashi began to smirk to himself as he realized just how much potential his team had. He'd push all of them to do their best and they would be unstoppable.
'Kakashi... What if I'm not the Child of Prophecy?'
'You are, Naruto.'
'If you say so, sensei.'
Kakashi repressed Naruto's presence and stared at Genma, conflicting emotions swirling through him. The one that remained when the swirling stopped was apprehension, cold and heavy in the pit of his stomach. It was the kind of apprehension that usually arose when one was faced with an enormous task that they knew they must do but weren't sure how to complete.
[.-_-.]
"THANK YOU FOR allowing me to meet with the team, Jiraiya-sama," Yawaraka began to explain, smiling briefly at Jiraiya before fixing her eyes on Kakashi. "I've been most interested in meeting them."
Kakashi blinked, struck by a strange sense of familiarity with the way her voice sounded. He shrugged it off and looked her in the eye, curious as to why she was staring at him in such a fashion. She moved to sit across from him at the small table, bowing before she sat down.
"I understand that you were ambushed on the way here. You are the son of the White Fang of Konoha, are you not?" she inquired, her voice breathy with strange anticipation. Kakashi nodded, a tad uncertainly, and she continued. "It is to my understanding that you, on your own, took down around thirty of the soldiers. Is this true as well?" He nodded. "I see. Thank you."
When she began to walk away, Kakashi struggled with the urge to ask if they'd met before. Figuring it couldn't hurt to ask her, he called out to her. "Have we met before?"
"Yes," she said softly, not bothering to turn around. Kakashi's heart-rate spiked at the affirmation and he struggled to recall where he knew her from. She continued to walk away from them, leaving Gai and Genma to be disgruntled in her wake.
Genma twirled his senbon in his fingers, growling slightly in agitation. "Dammit, why didn't she want to see us? I mean she's even super pretty you'd think she'd be nice enough to stay and talk!"
Gai nodded, taking a sip of what he thought was tea. "I understand, she is quite beautiful. I wonder if I will ever find someone so beautiful... perhaps not, the girls seem to think I'm quite odd."
Kakashi absently commented to Gai," Maybe it's the haircut?" as he pondered where he knew her from. Finding the results inconclusive he poured himself a drink as well. He didn't drink it though, he simply sat at the table, admiring the craftsmanship. This, oddly enough, was strangely familiar as well.
He began to look around the room, trying to find other details that were important as well. Near the door was a memory wall similar to the one in his home. He smirked to himself, wondering what child it was for as he stood up to walk over to it. He could hear Gai taking loud slurps of his drink as he made his way over to it.
Kakashi frowned in consternation when he realized that where mementos should have been there were pictures. A picture of someone's first shoes, a picture of their first kunai and shuriken... a picture for everything...
Behind him there was a commotion and Kakashi spun around to find Gai, cheeks red and sweaty as he blearily looked around. "Whadya lookin' at? D'yu think I'm ugly or summat?"
"Huh?" Kakashi did a double take as he realized that he was experiencing the "Drunken Fist" first hand. How on Earth... perhaps there really was a connection between Lee and Gai after all! Kakashi immediately stepped in, attempting to hit the pressure point on Gai's shoulder that would put him to sleep.
Gai languidly rolled away from him, avoiding the pinch. Jiraiya roared with laughter, slapping his knees. "Looks like we got a natural, eh?"
"Jiraiya! If we don't stop him he'll destroy the place. You know Gai!" pointed out Genma, struggling to help Kakashi. He could only get within a foot of the boy before a strange kick or awkward fist would connect with his face.
Grudgingly, Jiraiya rose to his feet. Moving with enough speed that his visage blurred, he moved to Gai and clamped a hand down over his student's shoulder, effectively dropping him. He caught the boy before he could fall to the floor and then proceeded to carry him off to bed. Kakashi absently wondered if the boy would have a hangover the next day.
He sat down at the table, swirling and sniffing his sake before he'd even consider taking a sip. It didn't smell like normal sake so he set it back down and let his mind return to the strangeness of the memory wall. He pushed away from the table, taking swift, sure steps towards the wall so that he could investigate it again.
It was strange. It was arranged in the same order as his father had arranged it. Was there an unspoken rule about the order of memory walls? He shrugged, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling that was clenching up around his shoulders and turned away just as Jiraiya entered.
"Come on, kid, drink some of your sake! It's not often the customs let minors like yourself drink! Though, perhaps you should have some tea eight is pretty young," Jiraiya trailed off, trying to reason with himself. Kakashi rolled his eyes and left the room as Jiraiya sat there, still debating. Sometimes he wasn't sure if the stupidity was only an act or not.
[.-_-.]
"KAKASHI! PROTECT THE villagers, I need you to focus!" yelled Jiraiya, his face red with exertion. Kakashi shook his head, trying to clear the images of the nightmares he'd been having only moments ago. He rolled out of bed, trying to wakeup but finding his legs and arms heavy.
"What's wrong with me?" he yelled to Jiraiya, trying to get his sluggish body to move more quickly.
"I drugged you so you'd sleep," explained Jiraiya, trying to look sheepish and failing. "I needed you to get enough sleep in case they attacked tomorrow. It backfired. They're here now!"
Kakashi stared at him stupidly, mid-way through the action of pulling his ninja sandal on. "You drugged me? When!"
"Before bed. I had to put it in your before-bed tea after you'd already sniffed it. I see Nenshou taught you well, eh?" Jiraiya ducked out the door again before Kakashi could respond and Kakashi began to grumble to himself about terrible teammates and stupid idiots who liked to attack under the cover of the night.
He began to swirl his chakra around inside of his body in an attempt to reinvigorate himself. Nenshou had taught him this as well. As the warmth of his crackling chakra spread throughout his body, he could feel his energy returning but his chakra was still sluggish. He continued to roil it up as he got ready, subconsciously preparing himself for battle as he methodically checked to ensure that he tightened his clothing where it needed tightening and tied things where they needed to be tied. He slipped his sheath over his head, fastening it so that it would stay in place.
Checking to make sure the sword was, in fact, in its sheath, Kakashi exited the room, sprinting down the hall in perfect ninja fashion. He would protect everyone.
[.-_-.]
BLOOD WAS EVERYWHERE. People were being slaughtered, but only the right ones. At least, this is what Kakashi told himself as he ruthlessly cut down the enemies. There would be repercussions for his heartless killing. He knew this. He knew that he would face many mandatory psych evaluations.
Child prodigies were a wonderful thing, but they had a reputation for being mentally unstable. He was already marked as a possible basket case. He would need to school his features when Jiraiya asked him how he felt.
Kawarimi-ing back and forth, he slit a throat here, impaled someone through the stomach there. Sometimes he would pause to engage the Genin level ninja from Iwa in an amusing game of cat and mouse. When he was met with a Chunin he would make an effort to cut them down as fast as he possibly could in order to prevent them from killing him. When he met a Jonin he ran and went off to fight someone more his speed. No sense dying by playing hero, he figured.
He mentally kept track of how many he killed. Lives were important, no matter how big of an enemy they were. As Kakashi slammed a Fuketsu Hira-aided fist into someone's face, he wondered if his name would change from the White Skipper to something more sinister as he racked up kills.
His body was running purely on chakra. When he ran out of a good amount of chakra, he'd be shit out of luck. His body would give out and he'd have to sleep as the pills Jiraiya had given him intended to make him.
Kakashi's body was a whir of motion, rarely remaining in one spot for more than a minute. More than once he had stolen Gai and Genma's opponent's, luring them away so that his teammates had a chance to think up solutions to the problems they were facing.
His mind went blank when the woman he'd met earlier that day stepped out onto the field, her long white dress billowing out around her. She began to sway back and forth, using her body to mold her chakra and then she began to channel it into hand-seals. The jutsus were incredible. Water and earth combined to bend the mud to her will and it rose in walls around her.
Kakashi could only stare as the mud began to siphon off of the large pillars she was creating, jamming itself into the mouths and noses of enemies, suffocating them. Impressive. His gawking left him open for an attack and he received a deep gash to his thigh. He cried out in pain, crumpling to the ground.
Yawaraka was at his side in an instant, her mud slinging the offending attack into a tree close by. Her white hair shifted forward as she bent down to pick him up. Kakashi felt oddly comfortable in her arms, but figured it was the positive intent she was letting out rather than killing intent. This was much harder to do than killing intent because it was the opposite. It's a lot easier to make someone fear you and feel your rage than for someone to feel your love and projected calm.
Kakashi hissed as she began to quickly wrap his leg, having shoved the leg of his shorts up so that she could get to the wound. She frowned heavily but didn't say anything otherwise. He winced when she tied it excessively tight.
"That's for getting hurt for a stupid reason. Now get back out there. We can't have the city fall, not right now," she hissed, smacking him for good measure. Kakashi's hand went to his cheek, feeling the red sting that blazed just there. She took off at a run, her fingers flying through seals so that the mud would follow her again.
"Damn, I need to learn how to do that," Kakashi said to himself, wishing just for a moment that he had the Sharingan again. If his wishes were ever met, he'd never have to have it.
[.-_-.]
FIFTY-NINE DEATHS later, Kakashi was winded and ready to collapse. His legs trembled and he couldn't hardly stand on his own. His teammates were on either side of him, staring at him in awe. The physical and mental stress of taking so many lives was beginning to take its toll. Even as an adult he'd hated cutting down his enemies but it was something that had to be done, though. These people, however, just wouldn't get a clue.
At least, not yet. The numbers were thinning. Hopefully they would stop sending people in to take down Uzushiogakure and hopefully Jiraiya would be able to call for reinforcements. Kakashi grunted as he fell to his knees, having completely over-exerted himself.
"I can't fight anymore," he panted, the slow burning in his muscles beginning to intensify. He'd used up too much chakra. "Where's Jiraiya?"
"I don't know," whispered Genma, crouching down next to him. "You gonna be okay? I hate to see teammates get hurt..."
"Get strong enough to protect them so you don't have to," advised Kakashi. "I hate to see it, too."
Gai looked like he was at a loss. "I'll protect you both, I swear it. Kakashi's been doing all the protecting and we can't have that. If we don't learn to work as a team we'll die. After this—because there will be an after—we need to start working on team routines. We all try to fight on our own and it's not working!"
"Astute observation, my most charming pupil!" yelled a loud voice, accompanied by a swooshing sound of air. The sounds of battle still raged on around them but Jiraiya seemed oblivious to it all. "Here we need to get him looked at. The battle has been won already, they just don't know it yet. Uzu has perservered."
The last thing Kakashi could remember doing before he lost consciousness was smiling in relief.
Author's Note: This is truly a shitty ending, I'm sorry. BUT consider it a cliffhanger because next chapter some super huge shit happens and you'll be like WHATTTTTTTT. So hang in there! Let me know what you think. I have kind of failed to describe Uzushiogakure but most of it is underground. There is some mystery surrounding all of this but bear with me. I might make up a picture and put it up so you guys can see what I think the architecture would look like. Again I've not watched the anime on this so I'm completely flubbing it.
I'd also like to state that I'm making up the whole circumstance of Uzu. Sazanami Yawaraka translates to Soft Ripples (If you read the name in the fashion of Yawaraka Sazanami).
REVIEW PLEASE! Any questions let me have them. I know the chapters are getting relatively short but I can't help it. I'll try to write a longer chapter next time.
