AN: So I'm still thinking about the Uchiha Massacre. I've worked out some of the kinks of what would be different as a result but not others, but either way, it happening or not happening, doesn't really affect this chapter so I thought I'd go ahead and post it.

Taicho means captain, senpai literally means upper classman, like a freshman would call a junior "senpai," but in the case it's used I think it means more like "more experienced comrade." Daijōbu="You ok?" I just thought it sounded better where I used it than the English.

70 reviews. *tears of joy* Reviews are love.

So, I was certain I would take some time off to focus on school, but I was so excited I couldn't stop writing. Grades, who needs 'em?

000

Inoichi Yamanaka came by to check up on me. He sat down on the cell's single chair.

"Hello Hikaru-chan."

I leaned my head back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. It seemed I was just going to have to get used to going by my old name again. It was as though everyone was trying to erase the past five years. Ridiculous. Speaking of which, it was both hard to believe but entirely plausible that it had been that long. Danzo-sama hadn't let me go outside for a long, long time. I had lost all sense of time then, not having a way to scratch lines in the tiny room I had lived in, nor enough light to see them by if I had. If I had to guess now, based on the fact that I'd spent a longer amount of time going on missions than trapped inside, I'd say that he'd kept me in the dark for two years.

"We're all relieved you're safe and sound, Hikaru-chan. Your kidnapping shook your classmates up quite a bit, including Ino-chan. I know Hinata-chan can't wait to see you again."

"Seeing her…" I trailed off, not certain how I could explain or why I'd even started to speak. Seeing her again would be pointless. Family connections didn't matter. Nobody mattered except Danzo-sama. And he was— I rocked my head back and forth in an approximation of shaking my head no.

"Yes?"

I sighed. "Nothing."

"Do you want to talk about anything at all?"

"No."

I heard him sigh. "You've been through a lot, Hikaru-chan. You shouldn't keep things bottled up. It's important to talk about what you've been through. You might be feeling conflicted right now; the seal on your tongue influenced your loyalties and emotions and now you have to deal with the fact that it's gone, that you still have a family, that you're free. You need to know that none of this, none of what you've been through, none of what you may've done even, is your fault. Danzo Shimura trained you, you may even feel that he protected you, helped you grow, but the fact is that he manipulated you. Once you start talking about everything, we can help you sort it out so that you can move on."

My eyes narrowed as he talked, but I couldn't sum up the energy to protest, even when he accused Danzo-sama. "There is nothing to talk about."

I heard him shift in his seat. That chair was quite uncomfortable. I just sat on my cot all the time. "Listen, Hikaru-chan, I know that this must be incredibly difficult for you. I need to get a picture of what you've been through if I'm to help you, and Hiashi-sama has given me permission to mind-walk you if necessary. I'd really rather not do that, because in the best case the healing process should start with you, but I will if I have to."

"Go ahead." I said. I didn't see any point in talking about anything, but if he wanted to know then he was free to look.

"What?"

I lowered my gaze from the ceiling and stared at the wall by his left ear. "I said go ahead. I have no objections of you obtaining my psychological profile that way."

"That's not the point, Hikaru-chan." He said gently.

I felt a spark of annoyance. I wished he would stop repeating that name. I'd heard it the first time. "I do not care."

He took a few minutes to think about it. "Alright then. It will be more comfortable for you if you lie down. This will take a few hours and while you won't notice that time, your body will."

I lay down obligingly as he pulled his chair a little closer. He rapped on the cell bars and the guard on the opposite wall came over.

"Did you make a note of that?"

"Yes, Yamanaka-sama. I'll inform Ibiki-san of what it is you're doing if he comes by while you're working."

"Good."

The guard went back to his post.

The last thing I remembered was Inoichi's glowing hand descending.

When I woke up Inoichi was writing on a piece of paper on a clipboard he must've acquired from someone. I tried to sit up, but he reached over and gently pushed me back down.

"Not just yet. You'll get dizzy. Give yourself ten minutes."

"Well?" I asked. Knowing his assessment of me would be helpful. He was going to try to weaken my ties to Danzo-sama, that much was obvious, and if I knew what else he thought of me and was going to try and change it would help me reinforce those areas of my psyche.

"Not just yet." He repeated, still writing. "This is going to help me prescribe you some medicine, and it will help me know where you're coming from, but eventually it will all still have to come from you. I'm not going to tell you you have such-and-such problem until you're more ready to acknowledge it yourself." I tried to read what he was writing, but it was a shorthand code that I didn't know, so that yielded nothing. "How are you feeling? Any nausea, dizziness, fatigue, headache?" He asked.

I took a moment to take stock of myself. "No."

"Good. Let a guard know immediately if you feel anything more than even a little dizzy." He stood up. "I'll get back to you with some pills for you to take in a couple days."

I turned my head to the wall. The conversation was over.

000

Inoichi went first to Ibiki to have a quick conversation with him, then to the Hokage tower to file his report and collect some information and then, as a result of what he found, to Kakashi Hatake's apartment. He rapped smartly on the door.

Kakashi was home, to Inoichi's relief. His visible eye widened in surprise when he saw who was standing in front of his door.

"Inoichi-sama?"

"May I come in?"

"Yes, of course." Kakashi ushered the other man inside and made them both a pot of tea.

"To what do I owe this visit?" Kakashi asked after they sat on the floor at his low table.

"I gathered that you volunteered to show Hikaru-chan around ANBU headquarters tonight."

Kakashi nodded, looking a bit awkward. "I thought it would be better for her to see a familiar face at first. From what I've heard, she isn't doing well is she?" What he couldn't tell the other man was that he'd also had some experience with a former ROOT member, but what he'd said aloud was his main reason anyway.

"No, she isn't." Inoichi told him grimly. "That's what I've come to talk to you about. I just finished a mind reading session with her."

"Oh?" Kakashi leaned forward, tea cup forgotten in his hands.

"I profiled, or oversaw the profiling, of the other ROOT kids too," Inoichi started "and I have to tell you that these kids on the whole are beaten down. The younger ones who hadn't gotten the seal yet have quite a bit of life and energy in them, actually, but those with the seal are a lot more subdued. Hikaru-chan…is quite a bit worse than that."

Kakashi's fingers gripped his cup tighter. Over the course of the year and a half or so that he'd known her, Hikaru had grown on him more than he expected. She reminded him a lot of himself, for one thing. She also didn't bother him when he didn't feel like talking and she'd even made him smile on occasion. He'd had nightmares about her after she disappeared. Just like Rin. He'd been right there and he'd failed to stop it.

"The seal was one that influenced emotions, yes, but it mainly encouraged loyalty to Danzo. It didn't cause the extent of what mental damage she has. I hate to say it, but she's a mess, Kakashi. I went through her memories as far back as I could and it looks like she was showing signs of PTSD before she was kidnapped as a result of losing her eye. That, untreated, and on top of what she went through at the beginning in ROOT, caused her to actively try and smother her own emotions. She succeeded a little too well. There's…" He waved a hand around vaguely "…a lot going on in her head. I would say that she should be pulled from any active duties, but unfortunately I think that would just make things worse. She needs purpose."

Kakashi swallowed. "What can we do?"

"I wish I could tell you. Step one would be helping her feel and open up, but that's easy to say and hard to do. The reason I'm telling you all this, however, is because for some reason, besides Hinata, the memories of the person she used most to try and stay grounded were of you. Not her father, not her cousins or any other family member. You. I'm thinking that you and Hinata are going to be the ones most likely to be able to reach her. And right now, she isn't ready to see Hinata."

Kakashi's shoulders hunched up. "This is…"

"I know." Inoichi said sympathetically. "It's not looking good. I know it's a lot to put on you as well, especially since you aren't even in ANBU anymore. If you can spare any time to spend with her, though, or if you know who her captain will be and can explain things so that he can know what's going on, then that will help her."

Kakashi nodded. "I'll do that."

"Thank you." Inoichi drained his cup. "I've got to go. Thank you for the tea."

"Don't mention it."

000

Some hours later I sat on the bed in my cell and stared blankly at the opposite wall, still trying to process what had happened. Danzo-sama was dead. He had given me purpose. Now I had none. There was no one to help me reinforce the training he had given me. I was aware that at some point I might start feeling emotion again, and that thought brought me closer to terror than anything else had brought me in a long while. The most I could feel now were like echoes or shadows of true feelings. Whispers. My strongest emotion was loyalty to Danzo-sama and a desire to perform missions well. My life was quiet and calm. Emotions were loud and inconvenient. I tried to confront the problem and remind myself of what emotions were by casting my thoughts back to the way life had been before, but as always my thoughts shied away from all of that. Those memories weren't safe. They weren't helpful.

I remembered that at the beginning of my training I had still felt emotion. I had been weak then, imperfect, volatile. After I had let my emotions fade I had gotten much better. I remembered suddenly that there had been something I used to say to myself over and over again to try and hold onto those emotions. "I love Hinata. Hinata needs me to stay strong." I tried to say those words now, test how it felt to shape them, but they simply would not come out. They died before they reached my throat. They held no meaning. I did not know why I'd tried to say them in the first place. Besides, there was a guard outside watching. It would be inconvenient for him to question me if I spoke. Speaking, really, was inconvenient too. It took too much effort. Eating was inconvenient, but I needed food in order to maintain my physical condition and complete missions to the best of my ability. Hunting and cooking were very inconvenient, but they were sometimes necessary for eating. I realized my thoughts were wandering. That was inefficient. I should be thinking of how to escape. How best to obey Danzo-sama's ord—

No, there was no point in trying to remember how I had been. I was best as I was now.

Ibiki Morino came in and unlocked my chains. I hadn't felt him coming, because my chakra was suppressed, but more concernedly I hadn't heard him either. I noted that ever since my capture I had been operating very inefficiently. If I had been so lax at ROOT headquarters or on a mission I would be killed. I knew I felt most alive either when I was on a mission or in Danzo-sama's presence, but that had all been taken away from me. My thoughts were sluggish. I recognized this and yet I did not care.

Ibiki was watching me silently. "Stand up and turn around." He said.

I obeyed.

He undid the seal on the back of my neck. Immediately my thoughts started to clear as I felt chakra circulating more normally throughout my body. I could sense Ibiki's chakra, dark and smooth, beside me. I blinked and straightened. Of course I should care about my performance levels. I needed to find a way I could help fulfill Danzo-sama's vision. D-Danzo—no, he was dead. He was—what was he? Really? What purpose would following him now be? No, I mustn't think like that. That was traitorous.

"Come with me."

He led me through the darkened streets of Konoha. It was nighttime, and there were only a few people out who we avoided. I found the darkness comforting.

"We're taking you and the other children to ANBU headquarters one at a time." He said quietly as we walked. "To draw less attention. The younger ones who hadn't been sealed yet we were able to take to orphanages or their parents."

I had not even thought about the others. They were none of my concern. Ibiki was looking at me, but it was dark and I was out of practice reading facial expressions in any case. I wondered if he was expecting some sort of response.

We walked the rest of the way in silence, entering a building and going down a long staircase to a grey open area that had a grey stone building at the other end. There was a man in a mask waiting at the entrance. My heart stuttered at the sight of him.

"Glad to see you aren't late, Wolf." Ibiki said.

"Who are you talking about? I'm never late." Kakashi said blithely.

Ibiki cracked a smile. "Right. Of course not." He looked back at me, I had stopped walking a couple feet before him. "Wolf is going to show you around." The invitation to come forward was clear.

I walked forward until I was level with Ibiki. "Here is your charge. I know introductions aren't necessary. I'll leave you to it." He left, only pausing at the bottom of the stairs for a backward glance.

Kakashi walked up to me slowly, closing the distance between us until he was arm's length away.

"Do you know who I am, Hikaru-chan?" He asked.

I cleared my throat. "Yes, Wolf-san," I paused and then added "Kakashi-san." Just so he would know I actually remembered his name.

Then, very slowly, as though I were a wild animal who might bolt away, Kakashi reached out a hand and placed it on the top of my head.

Kakashi placed a hand on my head, messing with my hair and then letting it tremble and then lie still.

Sa…I know what that feels like.

I almost collapsed as I was hit with a memory I had repressed, of Kakashi mussing my hair and holding his hand on the top of my head right before I'd been kidnapped. I trembled violently under his hand. We stood like that for several minutes. I was cold, all except the spot he was touching.

"Do you remember?" He asked softly.

"Yes." I half-gasped, half-whispered. This was, this was…not as though my time in ROOT had never happened. Oh no. I wasn't feeling anything except cold and shaking. But it was a spider-thread thin line to something. The past, my feelings, or just Kakashi, I didn't know. I didn't want the former two and wasn't certain how I felt about the latter. But it was all I had. Danzo-sama was dead. I had no direction, no connections, no emotions. I have nothing else but this.

Kakashi started to take his hand away, and without thinking I grabbed it with both hands and pressed it to my head. His hand twitched in surprise, but he let it be. After a few more minutes he tugged gently at it.

"You're cold. We need to get you inside and settled."

I was cold, but that wasn't the reason I was shaking. I managed to let go of his hand, somehow, and let my arms drop to my sides. I took several deep breaths to calm myself down. This was the exact sort of thing I had been dreading. This vulnerability. It was detrimental to my performance. If Kakashi wanted me to show my abilities right now then I would perform severely under my true capabilities. Moments before, I hadn't wanted it to end. Now I saw it for the weakness it was. I found my center and stopped shaking.

I couldn't stop myself from shuddering as he took me by the shoulder and guided me inside. He gave me a set of small ANBU armor, the standard ANBU tanto, and a bird mask already painted with blue markings.

"I've been retired from ANBU for a year now, but I asked to bring you in. Your captain, who you'll meet tomorrow morning, is a man I trust. He'll help you." He told me quietly as we walked past rows of doors to stop at one labeled "9." He opened the door, there were six bunkbeds inside, as well as small chests at the base of each bunk bed, two chests of drawers, and two desks. All in all it was larger than I'd expected. The nearest bottom bunk was already occupied by a man lying on top of the covers reading. A lamp was on. Kakashi walked inside, taking off his mask and running a hand through his hair. I followed and paused, uncertain of where to place the equipment I'd been given. I assessed the man, who looked to be around twenty years old. Any member of ANBU was automatically a high threat level, which made me wary of him. He looked up at me and gave a little wave.

"Tenzo, what are you doing here? You have an apartment. You weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow." Kakashi sounded exasperated.

"I thought I'd greet my new team member, senpai."

Kakashi said to me. "This is Tenzo, your captain. There's only three of you for now. Yugao sleeps at home, like a sensible person. As do I, most of the time."

"Oh, are you going to join us tonight?" Tenzo asked.

Kakashi looked at me sidelong. "Yes."

Tenzo made a noise of understanding. "That's nice, senpai. I'm sure we'll all get along."

Kakashi rolled his eyes, then turned to me. "Are you hungry?" He asked.

I nodded. I'd had dinner, but the portions had been smaller than what I needed to stay in shape.

Kakashi turned back to Tenzo, "You may as well make yourself useful, while you're available. She needs to get registered and tattooed, so while you do that I'll go find a take-out place that's still open and get us some food."

"Sure." Tenzo put his book down and stood up. He looked me up and down. "I didn't catch your name, what was it?"

Kakashi stayed silent, waiting to see how I would answer. I felt a hint of frustration. Tenzo had to have already known the name of the Hyūga girl standing before him. Both of them were assessing me to see if I would identify myself with the name people had called me my first five years of life here. I would not. That was not who I was.

"My name is Suté." I said.

Tenzo nodded slowly. "Did you choose it?" He asked.

"No. Danzo-sama gave it to me."

"Hmm. Danzo gave me a name too, but I chose another one." Tenzo told me.

I did a mental double-take. This man was a ROOT agent? I didn't recognize him. He could not be a ROOT agent. He was far too relaxed so soon after Danzo's death. Tenzo's apparent state of mind did not make sense. If he was a ROOT agent, however, then he could help. He could help me maintain my training. There was only one logical possibility. This man must've been a long-term plant in ANBU. He was an extremely good actor who had gained Kakashi's trust, despite Kakashi knowing he was an agent. I could not even sense a coldness inside his chakra common to almost all ROOT members, but it had to be there. The name questioning was a test, yes, but for him it must've been to see if my loyalty to Danzo was already wavering.

They had both noticed me tense up. Kakashi reached out a hand to place on my shoulder, but I stepped away. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than for him to leave the room, so that I could speak to Tenzo alone. That little spider thread of something, whatever it had been, snapped in two. It was irrelevant. I forced myself to relax.

"It is nice to meet you." I said, trying to slide into a more casual persona. It had been a little while since I'd been on an infiltration mission and in my shaky state of mind it was going to take a bit to get into that mindset, especially since I wasn't dressed for a part or with a changed appearance through henge or genjutsu. Now though, now I had an ally to emulate.

Tenzo gave me and then Kakashi a look. "You go get that food, senpai. We can talk more later."

"Mmm." Kakashi said. "See you." He body-flickered away.

I immediately put myself into a bow. Clearly Tenzo outranked me in ROOT.

"Tenzo-taicho, what do we do?"

He flapped his hands at me, "No need for that. First we get you registered."

I straightened up. "I don't mean about that," I said, "how have you maintained your training when undercover for so long?"

"Oh. Ah." Tenzo put a hand on the back of his neck, "I left ROOT years ago, Suté-chan. Kakashi-senpai helped me out. Now I get to return the favor with you."

It was like expecting a hug and then being stabbed. Or receiving a punch to the gut. It shocked me out of my numbness, a little.

"How is that possible?" I said, voice rising. "How could you just leave?" He'd betrayed Danzo-sama. It was unimaginable. I unsheathed the tanto and threw the rest of the equipment across the room, away from both of us, much as it pained me to mistreat equipment that way. Tenzo had put his hands out in front of him both to placate me and get ready to fight. I don't think he expected me to turn the blade on my stomach. "Why?" My voice wavered unpleasantly. "What other way was there, than this?" I bowed my head, sword wavering even though I held it with both hands. "What point is there to anything, but surviving and doing what he wanted?" How could he have just left ROOT? What other reason was there to live? What other recourse was there, but death?

"Suté-chan!"

I took the blade away from my stomach and let it hang in one hand at my side. "You don't need to worry." I said flatly. "I would never kill myself." My hand gripped the hilt tighter. I wanted to kill him. He deserved death for leaving voluntarily. I had the feeling that he was far out of my league, but at this point I wouldn't mind dying to take him with me.

He eyed me warily, hands still held out. His sleeves were bulging slightly with something I couldn't see. I would have to avoid his arms and hands then, or preferably cut them off as soon as possible. "To answer your question," he said "as I said, I had help. Kakashi-senpai and the Hokage helped me leave. I made friends."

"Friends." I said, still flatly. "That's nice." The concept was laughable. Making friends while in ROOT. I couldn't even begin to communicate how ridiculous that sounded.

"Yes," Tenzo said patiently, "friends. People who valued me. People who did kind things for me even at personal cost. And I did the same for them."

"Oh. Well. I had friends. On infiltration missions. Most of the time, I ended up killing them."

This conversation was pointless. I took a deep breath, readying myself. Then Kakashi, with the worst timing ever, reappeared in the room with two bags in each hand. He took both of our stances, me with my sword and Tenzo with whatever he had up his sleeves, and set the bags on the ground.

"Put the sword down, Hikaru-chan." He said.

I let the sword fall to the ground with a clatter. I couldn't kill Kakashi as well. He was too powerful.

Tenzo straightened up, the bulges underneath his sleeves disappearing. He looked at Kakashi. "She didn't take the news that I left ROOT very well." He sounded disappointed.

"Ah. I wondered why you were still here and not getting her tattoo done yet." Kakashi said faux lightly. Then he clapped his hands together. "We're going to eat, and get all the paper work out of the way, and then I think Hikaru-chan and I are going to have a spar."

Tenzo and I both looked at him with varying degrees of incredulity. Kakashi beamed back at us.

000

Midnight found us all in an empty training field.

Tenzo was sitting in a tree at the edge of the field. Kakashi and I were facing each other some distance away. We were only about ten feet away from each other. Kakashi had his headband up, but kept his sharingan eye closed. I had my Byakugan turned on.

"Alright Hikaru-chan, come at me with the intent to kill."

It was, sadly, far easier to think of him as just a target than even I'd expected. I let my killing intent spread out and fill the air. "As you wish."

We both blurred forward.

I opened with a fireball jutsu, forcing him underground. I tracked his movements with my Byakugan. When he burst out of the ground I jumped backward, watching as he rose amidst flying chunks of earth. I didn't hesitate, flying forward and punching him hard enough to tear a hole through his chest. His image tore apart as the log of wood shattered. I shook my arm free of clinging splinters while ducking a punch aimed at my head.

Kakashi was fast. His follow-up kick exploded through a log I replaced myself with in the nick of time. I ended up near Tenzo and took a moment to assess things. Genjutsu would be useless with his sharingan and I didn't know any ninjutsu that would stop him. If I could shut down his tenketsu points then I'd have the advantage. The problem was I'd have to touch him first.

Now, how to surprise a man who's supposedly seen it all?

I ducked by some instinct as a kunai whizzed overhead. "Don't dawdle now." Kakashi said cheerfully, appearing behind me. Little known fact: Gentle fist can be used from any tenketsu point on the user's body. Hands are easiest, but not the only option. I elbowed him, shooting chakra into his side and disabling two tenketsu points there. He grunted, and I used the opportunity to kawarimi away again.

And thus began our game of cat and mouse, and I was definitely the mouse. Ninja battle tactics consist of quite a few principles, including but not limited to: Don't be where you opponent thinks you are, come at them from an angle they don't expect. If an opponent makes no attempt to hide their position, they are either over-confident or very powerful, and you should find out which one it is very quickly. Kakashi wasn't making any attempt to hide himself, (though, with my Byakugan, it wouldn't have mattered if he did) but I was having to spam low-powered bunshin with a couple earth clones thrown in the mix just to get a few lucky hits in and hold him off of me. In ROOT I'd done assassinations. I'd done infiltrations. Those I was at least competent at. Fighting jonin, though? I'd done it before, yes, but always with at least one other team member. Straight out fighting, much less defeating, a jonin-level ninja on my own was not among my strengths.

Still, with the hits I got in I made his chakra flow unevenly through his body. Small victories. He was wearing me out, though, and he wasn't even attacking me seriously. He'd gotten hits in too, but he'd clearly pulled his punches.

We had moved back out into the open at some point. I was holding my left side, which was flaring with pain from Kakashi punching me, and panting. It was fortunate for me that by some unspoken consensus after our opening attacks we'd stuck with taijutsu. Kakashi was standing opposite me. He was breathing only a little harder than normal, as though we'd just been warming up.

"Is that the best you can do, Hikaru-chan?" Kakashi taunted me lightly.

"Yes." He was trying to make me angry, but that wasn't going to work on me. Besides, I knew my limits.

"Hmm. Well, I'm just getting started." He said, cocking his head to the side, "but I don't think you're up for it. At least, not alone." He looked to the trees and made a few hand signals. Tenzo appeared beside me. "Time for some team effort."

Oh that was clever, wearing me out so that I'd be forced fight with and rely on Tenzo, when it was clear I didn't want to. I felt a twinge of annoyance.

"I want to make something perfectly clear." Kakashi said, still lightly. His chakra, on the other hand, flared warningly. "Tenzo is a friend of mine." And here his voiced dropped into his normal tone "If you try to backstab him in any way, I will stop you as a traitor. Those who disobey the rules are trash, but those who betray or abandon their comrades are worse than trash. You may think he's some sort of traitor for leaving ROOT, but he's a lot more loyal to this village than Danzo was. First and foremost, you are a ninja of Konoha. You need to relearn that."

"Of Konoha?" I asked softly. My annoyance suddenly blossomed into anger, for several reasons. Kakashi was someone I'd cared about, before, and now he was threatening to kill me. That made me angry. He'd accused Danzo-sama of being disloyal to Konoha to some degree. That made me angry for reasons fast becoming nonsensical even to myself. And he'd said I was a ninja of Konoha. For some reason, that made me the angriest of all. I found myself shaking with anger, anger in such a large quantity I didn't know how to contain it or what to do with it. It was as though any and all feelings of rage I'd held back in the last five years filled my entire body, with my heart as its wellspring.

"Of Konoha?" I screamed at him and charged. My fists glowed, lighting both of us with pale green light. I wanted to hurt him. No, I wanted to kill him. "When have I ever been a ninja of Konoha!" I punched, he dodged. "When the Hokage knew that Danzo-sama wanted to kill him, knew what kind of man he was, when he abandoned me, or any child like me, to ROOT, was I a ninja of Konoha?" He kept dodging, making no attempts to fight back. I was too tired to hit him by now, and that made me angrier. "When I obeyed Danzo-sama, who you say is a traitor, was I a ninja of Konoha? And you Kakashi! Did Tenzo," I spared a hateful glance at the man as I continued to throw useless kicks and punches, "ever tell you where ROOT headquarters were, or that there were children there? Did you ever think that's where I was? Or even if I wasn't, did you consider rescuing them?" I physically could not express the amount of anger I was feeling towards him in my voice alone, express how in the beginning I'd thought of him as an example of strength and perseverance in situations that seemed hopeless, that I'd even stupidly thought of him swooping in and rescuing me only for that hope to dwindle and die, but the killing intent that was boiling out of me was making up the difference. "You abandoned them! You abandoned me! Did you think I was a ninja of Konoha, and then abandon me?" My next punch slammed into his chest as he faltered at those words, causing him to skid backwards.

Before I could press my advantage I was suddenly restrained…by weird tree branches? I realized at some point during my tirade my Byakugan had turned off, allowing me to be caught completely off-guard by Tenzo's trick up his sleeve. I strained against the branches, but I was too drained to try and disrupt the chakra constructs with the Gentle Fist style. The chakra light around my fists flickered and went out, my body demanding me not to be wasteful with one of its power sources. I struggled fruitlessly, crying hot tears. I couldn't yell any more, couldn't express everything I felt. My anger seeped away, leaving me feeling absolutely drained and exhausted. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and fall asleep.

"Hikaru-chan." I couldn't see his face in the dark, but Kakashi's voice was pained. "I knew where ROOT headquarters were, but I didn't know you were there. I thought you were dead."

"I wasn't." I said brokenly.

There was silence. Then, out of the darkness, "I'm sorry."

Tenzo withdrew his branches. I wobbled and then sunk into a kneeling-sitting position, too tired to stay upright.

Kakashi was crouched before me in a flash. "Daijōbu?"

"N-not really. I'm-I'm sorry too. You didn't know. You shouldn't blame yourself. I don't blame you." Now that I was no longer angry, those words needed to be said too. I didn't blame Kakashi for not coming to get me, really. I had known it was only a dream even when I'd thought of it.

Kakashi assessed me. Then he turned around. "Get on my back. Let's get you back to the barracks."

I got up and draped myself awkwardly over his back. I was way too big for this, but Kakashi stood up and started walking like I weighed nothing and this was the most normal thing in the world.

He hadn't acknowledged what I'd said. "I really don't blame you. Tell me you believe me."

"I believe you, Hikaru-chan." He said tiredly.

"Good." I mumbled into his shoulder. "because I shouldn't have said all that. It wasn't right."

"It was fine."

"No, it wasn't."

Silence.

"Tenzo-taicho?" I said.

"Yes?" Came his voice from behind. I took a deep breath.

"Y-you can call me Hikaru too. Everyone else does."

"Yes, Hikaru-chan."

I fell asleep before we even got to headquarters.

AN

In canon Kakashi was retired for three years by this point, but the reason Kakashi was retired from ANBU was because Hiruzen felt guilty about Itachi killing his clan and didn't want Kakashi's heart to grow dark in the same way. No Uchiha massacre. No retirement, or at least not as soon. Eventually he was pulled out though.

I'm not sure that Inoichi would refer to PTSD by that name, but he wouldn't call it "shell shock" and I didn't want to have to come up with a new term for a familiar concept.

In reality, recovering from mental illness takes years and years and sometimes is never resolved. In Naruto, pretty much all it takes is Naruto attacking you and talking at you, in what I've heard referred to as his "Therapy no Jutsu." :) I'm going to try and strike a balance. Hikaru is going to progress a lot faster than she would in real life, but still slower than completely recovering in the space of a day or so. So yeah, she's feeling some emotion again a lot quicker than she should, but it's hard to keep writing her as being void of emotion. It's a bit draining, to be honest. I kept on wanting to have her emote even at the beginning of the chapter and then I had to remember that she can't. So, she's rediscovered anger. Yay? And sadness somewhat.

Also, Kakashi wasn't actually threatening to kill her. He meant "I will stop you and see you disciplined" and she took it the wrong way. Also, even though she'd probably realistically insist on being called Suté for longer, I just found it awkward to have her have two names, so I decided to resolve it by the end of this chapter.

Also, I hate writing fight scenes. Sigh.

Review Responses:

JBebe: Mostly for investment. Danzo is incredibly arrogant and thinks he can get away with just about anything. Heck, he basically can. In the anime he tries to assassinate Hiruzen. Does he get punished at all? Nope. So, he basically knows it doesn't matter what he does, the Hokage will never punish him. It took both the Hyuga and Uchiha clans threatening to straight-up leave the village that forced the Hokage's hand. Danzo was planning on either killing Hikaru immediately and setting it up to have her be discovered somewhere and have it look like someone else did it, or, as it turned out turning her into an agent. Then if she died at any point he could still set it up, and if she lived to adulthood he could kill her and take her eye. (Of course he would've taken Shishui's eye before then, but he didn't know that at the time.)

I tried to address the effectiveness by mentioning that the seal had a mental and emotional effect too. Also, I'm pretty certain that brainwashing works on all ages. Not to mention that she wasn't completely mentally sound in the first place due to PTSD, add in vulnerability because of being exhausted and sleep-deprived due to intensive training, and add in any other traumas she would have gone through early on, like having to kill someone for the first time, and you have a very broken individual. She pretty much welcomed feeling numb at that point, helping the seal affect her faster.

Wow: There was a reviewer named "wow" who reviewed for Ch 2, who said "YOU JUST SPOILED THE WHOLE STORY." Only with a swear word I found unnecessary and offensive, so I deleted it. However I still want to respond to it. Your review was too vague for me to get anything out of it. Since you were reviewing chapter 2, I was uncertain as to what you thought spoiled the story. Did you mean spoil as in ruin? Did you intensely dislike the fact that Hikaru told people she knew things? Or were you reviewing the whole story, just in the Ch 2 slot, and referring to the fact that I mention major spoilers later on? (Because there are no "spoilers" in Ch 2.) Or were you talking about the fact that I've drastically changed the storyline? Basically, your review was entirely unhelpful and inconclusive. If you hate the story that much by chapter 2 you could just stop reading anyway, no need to yell about it.

Alice: Hey, thanks for your review! I can't speak French, but I really appreciate it nonetheless.

Guest: Thank you!

MichaelJ-D: Thanks! :)