Chapter 10
The rookie teams decided they would all go out for something to eat and to talk. All of their minds were full and racing they all knew they wouldn't be able to just go home. They picked a quiet restaurant where they wouldn't be bothered. After placing a few tables together they all sat down and slowly started.
"How did we all miss this?" Ino asked
"Sasuke's good at hiding he always has been it's in his blood. It's not any of your guys fault for missing it. It's ours we were the adults we were his sensei we should have been able to see through it. You can't blame yourselves for this." Iruka said
"But you can blame yourselves?" Kiba asked
"It's not that simple Kiba. We're trained to see through deceptions and people. That's why we're the sensei and you're the students. We're trained for this if we had paid more attention then Sasuke wouldn't have been able to foul us." Asuma said
"Ya but we were his classmates we saw him more then you all did. We spent time closer to Sasuke to see his face and the rest of him then you all. I still can't believe none of us saw it. That we were all so self centered that we completely ignored him and for what? Just because of his name his attitude? Now knowing all of this I can't really blame him for the way he acted look at what he had to go through." Shikamaru said
"I think you're all forgetting that Sasuke is a genius. Unless he wanted someone to know he wouldn't have shown it. Not only that, Sasuke was only in the class for barely a year when his family was killed. He had bruises on him but he trained a lot more then the rest of us so that was credited for. He was thinner then the males in the class, but again he trained more then us so it was credited for. Sasuke covered everything up perfectly so that no one ever did think twice if they thought something was off. Sasuke is a genius and he out smarted us all." Shino said
"Do you think he's still a little too thin for someone his age and height?" Shikamaru asked
The sensei looked at each other trying to decide if they really should touch on that topic or not.
"Sasuke's has always been under the average weight level. For a ninja he really should be a little heavier. I'm sure Kakashi will be discussing it with him and coming up with a plan for him to gain some weight." Iruka explained
"It may very well be that Sasuke is just simply training too much so what food he does eat doesn't get the chance to stay with him long enough for it to turn into fat." Asuma added
"So now what do we do? How do we help?" Naruto asked
"By doing nothing with Sasuke really is the best way you can help." Iruka said
"How can we just stand by and do nothing? We already did that for the past five years and it's done no good." Naruto said
"We didn't know what was going on though. As the children you do nothing but act normal around him and let us the adults fix this. This isn't something any of you can fix it's not even something you all can fully understand. Just be yourself around Sasuke like always don't treat him differently especially when he's on your team for missions." Iruka said
"So we're basically just supposed to act like we don't know he's killing himself?" Kiba asked
"Kiba…"
"No seriously that's what you're saying that the best thing to do is just let him keep killing himself? We all know he's thin because he's starving himself. We all know he's exhausted because he doesn't sleep ever. We all now know he's cutting himself and from what I saw of the pictures pretty damn badly. You can tell us to do nothing but you can't just sit there and tell us to act the same way. I can tell you right now I won't be able to. How could I treat him the same way when I treated him like crap. After knowing all this I can't help but feel bad for him little lone keep treating him like shit."
"We don't want you to keep treating him like shit. We want you all to just be yourselves around him so he can start to feel comfortable with being himself around people. We don't know who Sasuke is all we know and have seen is the Uchiha in him. Who Sasuke is we don't know and we never will if we can't get him to feel comfortable with being who he is. The exhaustion, the starving himself and cutting himself we will be dealing with that. By you all just being yourselves that is helping Sasuke in a way that we can't." Asuma said
"I guess it's worth a try after all it can't make anything worse." Sakura said
"Good we are going to get going to Kakashi's and speak with him we will see you all tomorrow for training." Asuma said
The rookies just gave a nod and watched as their senseis walked away. Their minds were still racing it would take some time before they could fully process everything that was said today. They all went their separate ways homes all understanding that the other needed time to think.
Back at Kakashi's apartment Sasuke had taken a shower and changed his clothes. He was still unbelievably sore from the previous night and just wanted nothing more then to sleep. He was sitting in the spare bedroom when he heard a knock on the front door followed by it opening and closing. He didn't know who was here but he didn't care he just wanted to be left alone. After today everyone knew the truth and it wouldn't be long before it hit the news and papers. He couldn't hide from it anymore everyone will know by morning everyone will think differently of him and treat him differently. How could he work with his team now little lone other teams that didn't even know him.
There was a knock on his door and Kakashi walked in without even waiting for a response. He was followed by Iruka, Asuma, Kurenai and Gai. Sasuke wasn't sure what was going on but it couldn't be anything good. He was in trouble for what he did and they were here to set him straight. The others made their way around the bed to be planked on each side and the foot of the bed stood Kakashi. Sasuke just looked down he couldn't help it this was just too weird for him. He didn't know what was going to happen at all. He was badly injured and sitting in a room with five elite ninja's. no one said anything for a few minutes no one knew where to start finally Sasuke couldn't take it anymore in a low whisper he spoke.
"I'm sorry"
"For what Sasuke?" Kakashi asked
"For what I did."
"What did you do?" Kakashi asked
"I killed those people."
"Sasuke you were just three years old you had no choice. It's important you understand this. What happened growing up is not your fault you owe no one an apology." Iruka said
"Fifty innocent people are dead by my hand that sounds like a lot to apologies for."
"You were forced Sasuke. Your father is to blame for their deaths you were a victim just like them. Whether you stabbed them or not they were going to die regardless. Your father wasn't going to let them just walk away from it. They were dead the moment your father brought them into his house." Asuma explained
"We've all killed people Sasuke. It's not easy to get over its going to be even harder for you because of how young you were. That doesn't mean you can't over come this. We all understand how it feels after killing someone." Kurenai said
"You said your father killed himself did you mean that?"
"I did"
"What…"
"He was depressed for a while. Longer then I had thought I was a little younger then you. He had been talking strangely for him telling me how much he cared about me. What he wanted for me for when I was older. That he was sorry for what to this day I'm not completely sure. I can only assume he was sorry for what he was about to do. I walked into his room later on that night and he was dead. He was hanging from the ceiling with a note left stating once again that he was sorry. Now Sasuke I have a question for you. Yesterday when I was in the Hokage's office the first time around Danzou had told me about these killings. He also mentioned how everyone in the Clan was killed by having their throat's slashed by Itachi's sword. Except your father he had a cut along his neck but it wasn't deep enough to kill him. He was killed by a stab wound right in the center of his neck just like all of those innocent people. Do you know how that got there?"
Sasuke just gave a nod. His head was down and his eyes were focused on his hands in his lap. They were shaking he didn't know where this was going.
"Now what you say in this room in this very moment Sasuke stays in this room. it doesn't get brought up outside of this room and doesn't get reported by anyone. There's more to this story more that your holding in and you need to tell it."
"Itachi had just left after he killed them. I went over to mother and checked for her pulse but she was gone. father though I saw his chest moving he was still alive. He opened his eyes and he looked right at me. He was bleeding out but he would live through it. He couldn't move though he needed me to go get help so he could live. He actually started begging me to run for help. It was so ironic, because out of all the times I begged him to stop or they did he would just make it worse. He couldn't live it would have been just me and him all alone there was no one there to stop him for what he was doing. I couldn't kill anymore I couldn't handle anymore so I picked up the knife. I closed my eyes and stabbed him and I killed the last person I was forced to kill."
They couldn't believe it. After everything Sasuke had been through he was forced to kill his father just so he would survive. They had truly failed him he never should have had to be going through any of that or this.
"We're going to get you better Sasuke. This is Gai he's the leader of a Genin squad that graduated last year. The Hokage had said you would be bouncing around between squads and it will be just these four squads." Kakashi said
"It's an honor to have an Uchiha on my squad I look forward to teaching you Sasuke. I shall help you bring back the flame of youth deep inside of you." Gai said
Sasuke just sat there staring at Gai he honestly didn't know what to say to that at all.
"You won't be with his squad first. You'll be with mine first once your healed fully." Kurenai said
"Your squad?"
"She's the leader of squad eight with Shino, Hinata and Kiba. We figured that would be a better start both Shino and Hinata don't really say much." Kakashi said
"They could use your help with your fighting skills. You all can learn from each other." Kurenai said
"But this won't be taking place for at least a month or two Sasuke. We need to make you healthy first." Asuma said
"Right starting with a proper diet." Kakashi said
"I eat healthy."
"Yes you do I will give you that. The food you eat is very healthy but you don't eat enough. You can't just eat once a day and not at all some days. You'll be eating three times a day breakfast, lunch and dinner." Kakashi said
"Can't we just start with two and skip breakfast?"
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It fills you with energy, energy that a growing youth like yourself needs and much take advantage of." Gai said
"Why don't you eat breakfast Sasuke?" Kakashi asked
"I haven't since I was three. After killing someone not even an hour before I just couldn't stomach anything. After the Clan was dead though I still couldn't with the nightmares nothing would ever stay down. The smell of food just makes my stomach turn."
"Okay we can start with two meals a day and go from there. I understand that the nightmares would make it very difficult to want to eat in the morning. Once we get the nightmares calmed down then we can work on breakfast. Now you will be seeing a trauma counselor three times a week for a few months. Then once you're back on missions we will go from there." Kakashi said
"The cutting though is the main issue right now. We can not allow that to continue to happen. We understand that it has been happening for many years now and it's going to be hard to stop. However, it needs to stop it's not safe it's not healthy and when you go back on missions we won't allow you to get the chance to do it. Nor will your teammates Sasuke." Asuma said
"There's things you can do we can teach you to do so that when the desire comes you can get through it without cutting Sasuke." Iruka said
"Like what?"
"The other night we discussed meditating you could try that." Kakashi said
"I can teach you a safe way to box out your anger and that desire. I can show you how to do it safely though so you don't ruin your hands." Gai said
"You can also always try talking about it when you feel like you need to." Iruka said
"You could try painting its very calm and peaceful. If you keep busy you won't have time to cut." Kurenai said
"You could go out with some people surround yourself with people that won't let you give in to the temptation." Asuma said
"So just don't do it basically." Sasuke said
"Sasuke it's not easy I know but know this if you continue to lose weight if you continue to cut then I will be placing you in a recovery center where only I can sign you out. I don't want to do that to you. Now I do believe you will gain weight because you know very well yourself that your not at a healthy weight and it's affecting your ability to be a ninja. The cutting I will give a little leeway to a point. I can understand at first it will be hard to overcome it. So I will be allowing a few mess ups here and there. How many is only for me to know. You have an amazing will power though Sasuke with that being said I think you are more then capable of getting through this without a relapse. You just need to have faith in yourself." Kakashi said
"Thanks"
"Alright we're going to leave you alone to get some rest and try to sleep. I know it's hard but try you need to sleep. I'll come in and check on you frequently to make sure you're okay Sasuke." Kakashi said
Sasuke just gave a nod and watched as the adults filled out of his now new room. it was still day light outside so Sasuke had a chance of getting a decent sleep. It wasn't till night when the nightmares normally surfaced. Getting under the covers and laying down Sasuke closed his eyes and let his exhaustion take over.