A/N: Phew, another looooooooong chapter--not the longest in this fic (for now, that title still goes to Broken), but still more than average. It just wouldn't stop... Mucho thanks go out yet again to my beta, o0-Constance-0o, because she remains so very awesome. *mwah* Everyone join me in telling her she is NOT ALLOWED to kill her computer again because I really thought she'd fallen off a cliff or something. Listen up, Con--no one but my kids is supposed to make me worry like that. :-) LOL! And let's not forget, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all you dads out there! Call your dad and tell him you love him. By the way, guys, a man who loves kids is hella sexy. Srsly.
This is a fanfiction written for fun, not profit. Suyo's the only one I own. And as mean as I've been to her, I bet the rest of 'em are pretty damn glad that I don't own them... alas!
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Kakashi wasn't thinking of a destination when he transported away from the ANBU headquarters with Suyo in his arms. At that moment, his only goal was to get her away from there. Suyo was outgoing and accepting, but he recognized that as one of her masks–one that hid an intensely private nature. And right now that mask was down. Kakashi would do whatever it took to shield her until she could repair it again because no matter what had happened between her and Kakashi, no one had the right to see her in such a delicate state. No one had the right to witness her pain or fear. No one, no one had the right to her secrets.
Especially the ANBU who so terrified her.
And yet she'd braved them to come to him. That act told him more clearly than any declaration that her feelings for him went just as deep as his own for her, and despite his continuing tension, that gave him hope for the first time in days.
When the swirling of the jutsu ceased, he saw that he'd instinctively brought her to his apartment, within his layers of traps and wards–it was the safest place he knew. He'd brought her to the place he hid when he needed to fall apart, because regardless of Kurenai's aid, Suyo was clearly still falling apart, and Kakashi didn't know how to make it stop. He closed his eyes and fought the need to do battle on her behalf because there was nothing for him to kill. He would fight Shinigami-sama Himself for Suyo, would take on legions of ninjas or monsters or tailed demons, but her demons were inside. Her enemies were long dead and out of his reach.
He might be the legendary Copy-Ninja of a Thousand Jutsu, might be one of the most talented and dangerous shinobi in the history of Konohagakure, but none of Kakashi's famous skills were of any use right now. He'd never felt so helpless.
"I was the only one who knew when they were coming."
Her whisper was nearly inaudible against his chest. He frowned, wondering if he'd heard her correctly because her statement made no real sense to him.
She didn't lift her head. "I can't explain how I could tell," she said in that same faltering voice. "I could just... sense them coming, somehow. Feel them like... like a tickle in my mind."
The silence stretched longer this time, and he finally had to break it. "I don't understand," Kakashi murmured into her hair. The scent of her was like coming home. "Suyo, who could you sense?"
She shivered hard, but gave no other indication that she'd heard him. "I think it's the reason I survived so long. I knew when they were coming so I could pretend I was sick, or unconscious, or... but the others didn't. The experiments... they wanted us as healthy as possible when… when they… I faked being sicker than I was so they didn't use me as much. Not as much as the others."
Icy dread slithered down his spine as Kakashi at last realized what she was telling him. He had never expected her to talk about her time in that Sound prison camp–would never, ever have asked her to do so. He understood that some pain couldn't be blunted by any passage of time. Yet now that she was voluntarily reopening those wounds to share this with him, he wasn't sure he could stand to hear it. He didn't know what to do in the face of this astonishing show of trust. Words weren't his strength, never had been, so he didn't even try to say something to comfort her. Instead, he just hugged her tighter.
Her shivers slowly subsided in his embrace, but they didn't vanish altogether. "That's how I can tell when you're looking at me," Suyo went on a few moments later. "Or when Naruto tries to sneak up on me... I never know who it is, I can just feel it when someone's watching me. When it's a ninja."
Chakra signatures, Kakashi realized with a kind of awe. She was actually sensing chakra signatures. When a shinobi seriously trained their chakra, it developed a certain energy pattern, almost a mental flavor–difficult to describe, but very real and as individual as a fingerprint. It was how Kakashi could detect the difference between his fellow shinobi and enemy nin long before they were within range of sight or scent. Suyo's talent wasn't anything like that refined, but it was still incredible for a civilian to be able to sense chakra signatures at all. It was the kind of skill that took most shinobi months of training to learn.
But then again, Suyo had had two years of the most intense kind of training possible. Learning to listen to the instinct that warned that the Sound nin were coming to gather subjects for those damned experiments had become a vital survival skill. Seen through that lens, her ability didn't seem so improbable.
And now he realized why she'd thought Iruka was the one watching her this morning–she couldn't tell which ninja was watching her, just that one was. She'd seen Iruka looking at her before she'd found Kakashi, that was all. That realization finally defused his fury and jealousy of the younger man. She hadn't been asking him to help her get away from Kakashi, as he'd assumed at the time. She'd been asking Iruka to bring her to him.
And the chuunin-sensei had. He'd somehow tracked Kakashi down, and he'd brought her to the ANBU training grounds.
Not knowing that he was putting her in the midst of the thing that frightened her most.
Suyo's hands were slowly twisting knots in the back of his shirt. Kakashi forced his attention away from Iruka and chakra to focus solely on her. It was a good thing he did, because when she spoke this time, her voice was so soft that he had to strain to hear her. "That's how I knew the... the ANBU ninjas were coming."
"Suyo..." Remorse stabbed him as he stroked her hair, wishing more than ever that he was good with words, that he knew what to say at times like these. Damn him for not warning her about his ANBU tattoo! "Suyo, I'm so–"
"Don't," she cut him off firmly, and he fell silent as though his voice had been cut off by a switch. Her tone softened again at his instant silence. "Please... this is hard. I just... I have to say this now, before I lose my nerve. I need you to know."
Kakashi nodded. "All right," he murmured. Although whatever she wanted him to know would probably hurt like hell to hear, he wouldn't interrupt her again. Kakashi lifted her in his arms and carried her to the couch, then sat down with her cradled in his lap. As soon as she was settled, he resumed stroking her hair, hoping it would provide some kind of comfort. That it would help her get through it somehow.
Suyo took a shuddering breath before speaking again. "All that day, I sensed them getting closer. I knew a lot of people were coming, but I didn't know who they were," she said, and Kakashi closed his eyes as he remembered the photos of that dismal camp. He didn't want to imagine Suyo chained to one of those horrible little cots, waiting in dread for the mass of strangers to arrive, but the image seared his mind and refused to go. "I thought Orochimaru might be visiting again... he did, sometimes, to check their progress... but this group was even bigger than his. And I... I didn't warn anyone. I never did. I didn't warn anyone!"
He smelled salt in the air now, the brine of her tears, and held her tighter. He understood why Suyo had stayed silent and would never judge her harshly for it. By the time Tsunade had sent those ANBU squads out, Suyo had endured almost two full years of torture, had been mutilated in body and tormented in mind. She'd seen her family murdered and any hope of escape or rescue died soon after. The only choice open to anyone in that kind of situation was to either give up entirely and embrace death, or do whatever it took to survive. Suyo had chosen survival, and that meant putting herself before everyone else. It was rational, instinctive, completely excusable, and Kakashi knew the decisions she'd made would haunt her forever no matter what he said or did.
It took her several moments before she went on. "It was dark when ANBU attacked… we didn't understand what was going on at first. I was so crazy by then I couldn't tell if they were wearing masks or if they really were part animal, another experiment. I thought maybe they were replacements for our current guards until they started... started killing them." She was shivering again now–more than shivering, she was shuddering so hard he felt like his embrace was all that was holding her together. "It was like Junyato all over again, but this time none of us could run away, we were all chained... one of our guards came and unlocked our shackles, and we thought we were going to be set free, but they... they threw us in the middle of the it. We were a distraction. No one cared if they killed us or each other."
Kakashi kissed the top of her head, wishing he could drive the memories from her mind. She felt so delicate in his arms as she relived that horrible battle. "I saw the woman who delivered my son get cut in two right in front of me," she whispered harshly. The scent of her tears intensified. "Benjiro took a knife in his eye. Izanami was set on fire… it took her so long to die…"
She was silent for a long time after that, and he didn't press her to go on. Selfishly, he hoped that she wouldn't. Knowing she'd been in the middle of such a brutal fight hurt Kakashi more than any wound he'd ever endured. The first time he'd kissed her, he'd thought that Suyo's gentleness was something precious that should be protected. It killed him that he hadn't been able to do that for her.
She cleared her throat and managed to pull herself together enough to keep speaking. "I had always told myself that I would fight them if I ever got the chance," she said hoarsely, and now the words came fast, as if they were poison she couldn't spit out fast enough. "I didn't care if I died if I could just hurt them back, hurt them for what they did to Tadao and Ichirou… and I tried, I really did, but I could barely move by then. We were all sick, all weak. I managed to trip one of our guards, though. I tried to strangle him with the chain from my shackle but they'd… done things, to my muscles… during the experiments… I wasn't strong enough to hold him. He got away from me and stabbed me. His sword went all the way through me and into the ground–it got caught so he couldn't pull it back out no matter how hard he tried. He finally said I'd be dead soon enough anyway and left me there."
Suyo took one of Kakashi's hands and guided it beneath her shirt, leading his fingers to a deep, jagged scar at the edge of her right ribcage. He'd found that scar when they'd made love and knew there was a matching one on her back. She left his hand there as she spoke again, still in that harsh, pained voice. "I managed to pull the sword out. I had some crazy idea that I could use it. But after I got it out, whatever strength I had was gone. I couldn't do anything with it." She sounded so disappointed in herself and he hated that, because no civilian could have done anything more than what she had. Most couldn't have even forced themselves to endure the agony of pulling the katana out. She should be proud of her efforts, not ashamed.
Biting back the urge to say something comforting was tearing Kakashi apart. Hearing the dry facts of that battle from Tsunade had been awful enough. Hearing about it from Suyo, touching just one of her uncounted scars and learning its story, was unimaginably worse. He couldn't erase the mental image of her impaled helplessly on the ground like a bug, struggling to free herself as ANBU and Sound nin fought their vicious battle around her. He could just feel the notch in her bottom rib where the katana had jammed on bone. He caressed her scar gently, aching for her, knowing from experience just how bad that hurt.
No one should have to go through what she had. No one.
Kakashi rocked her as her tears soaked through his shirt. Every cell burned for revenge as he wished again that he could get his hands on those bastards and make them suffer the torments of hell for their crimes.
"When it was over, half of us were wounded and the rest were dead," she went on after another long pause. Despite the dampness on his skin, her voice was still remarkably steady. "And there weren't many of us left by then... every single person I'd ever known was in that camp with me. And the ANBU killed so many of them after the battle was done." She stifled a sob and he was so tempted to urge her to let it out, not to repress it, because he knew the damage burying that kind of pain could do, but he respected her wish and stayed silent. "What they did to us... it was worse than Junyato... it was worse than any experiment or torture or... those bastards gave us hope, Kakashi. ANBU said they had come on a rescue mission, they told us we would go free, could go home, but then they butchered everyone!"
Suyo finally lifted her head, and her tear-bright eyes blazed with such fury, such vicious loathing, that Kakashi almost recoiled away from her. "I hate ANBU for that," she hissed as tears rolled down her face. "I will never forgive them, Kakashi. Never!"
And that was the last straw. He couldn't be silent anymore. "I'm so sorry," he murmured, pulling his mask away to rain kisses all over her face. Tsunade had told him ANBU had only put those who could not be saved out of their misery, but Kakashi knew how horrible it would've been for her to watch the last remnants of her old life die. One man's mercy killing was another's brutal, heartless murder. She had every right to her hatred. "I'm sorry, Suyo, I'm so damn sorry..."
To his great relief, she didn't pull away from him. Suyo pressed her forehead to his shoulder and he kissed her hands instead, her palms, every finger. "Tell me you weren't there," she whispered, her voice now desperate. "Tell me you're not ANBU. Please, Kakashi, I couldn't stand it if you were one of them. Tell me the tattoo is something else. I don't care if it's a lie. Just tell me you weren't one of the ANBU who were in the camp that night and make me believe it. Please."
His heart was breaking for her, but at least now she'd asked him for something he could give her. "I didn't go on that mission, Suyo. I wasn't there," he said, so grateful that it was the truth. "But I'm not going to lie to you. I've been retired for a long time, since before I became Naruto's jounin-sensei, well before those units were sent to the Sound camp where you were held, but I was in ANBU."
Her breath came out on a sob that cut him like a blade. "Why?" she cried, pounding a fist on his chest. "Damn you, Kakashi, why?"
Kakashi didn't misunderstand the question. He disregarded his instinctive desire to avoid answering. His past was something he never spoke of, but he wanted to return her remarkable gift of trust–genuinely wanted to do it. He cupped her face in his hands and raised her head so she could meet his gaze, praying he was doing the right thing by being honest now. He might not be any kind of expert on relationships, but even he knew that they had to be based in truth. He just had to hope he could make her understand.
He lifted her fist and kissed her knuckles. "I joined when I was thirteen, right after Konoha was decimated by the Demon Fox attack. I did it because I'd lost everyone I'd ever cared about–my parents, my team, my sensei, my friends–I had nothing left but the village. I didn't want anyone else to lose as much as I had," he said against her skin. "ANBU is the village's last and best line of defense, and I joined them because it was the best way I knew to protect Konoha as we tried to rebuild it. I did it because I've always been a weapon and I wanted to make every other nation too frightened of us to attack Konoha while we were so vulnerable." He struggled for a moment, then finally sighed. "I did it because shinobi have to do a lot of terrible things, and I thought that if I did the worst of them, no one else would have to. They would be spared."
She cried on his shoulder for what felt like forever. Every tear broke his heart. "I'm sorry, Suyo," he whispered, wishing he could have saved her this suffering, but still unable to regret the eight years he'd spent as the Hound. They had been awful years filled with horrible acts, but he hadn't lied just now. He truly believed that he'd saved more lives than he'd taken. He had to believe that. "I'm sorrier than I can ever tell you for what ANBU did to you. What happened on that mission… I joined ANBU to prevent the kind of thing that happened to you. But if I was given that choice again, I would have done the same thing, because Konoha was all I had. I had to protect it, even if it meant doing terrible things. I had to, Suyo."
Her silence, her tension in his embrace, stabbed him with terror. He was losing her–he could feel it. "I'm not ANBU anymore," he said, praying that just this once, he could find the right words to save what they'd started to build. "I retired years ago and I'll never go on another ANBU mission. Now I have other things to live for–Naruto, Sai, and Sakura … actual friends, like Maito Gai… and most of all, you." Her hands clutched him a little tighter, but she still didn't speak. "Suyo," he whispered, kissing her hair, more frightened in his moment than he had ever been on any life-and-death mission. "Suyo, please… please don't hate me."
Her sobs took forever to slow. Kakashi rocked her in his arms, eyes closed, hoping this wouldn't be the last chance he ever had to hold her. Finally, Suyo raised her head and silently met his gaze. She stared at him for what felt like forever, stared hard, and he didn't look away.
"If you'd been there," she whispered, piercing him with that gaze, "would you have killed my friends, too? Would anything have been different, Kakashi?"
"I would've done everything in my power to save every last one of them." His answer was instinctive, immediate. He hoped it was enough because if he hadn't been able to save them, he would have done no differently than the ANBU she so hated–he would indeed have given the injured a painless death. It might seem cold, but he'd seen enough death to know that leaving the mortally wounded to suffer was no mercy.
"Would you have fought your own comrades to save them?" she pressed, those green eyes burning into his. "Or would you have just carried out your orders? Even if it meant murdering helpless people?"
Kakashi sighed, aching at the pain in her voice, pain echoed in his own heart. He could spin her a pretty lie, but after he'd promised to tell her the truth, that would be nothing less than betrayal. It would make him even more unworthy of her than he already was.
So he told her the truth once more, well aware that he was digging himself into a pit he might not ever be able to climb out of. "I might be a killer, but I've never been a murderer," he whispered, wondering if he could make her see the distinction. It was a fine one, but that was a line he would not cross. It was a line that kept him on the side of sanity, of goodness–he'd danced on the edge of it, but he had never once crossed it, even in his worst, coldest years in ANBU. "Everything I have ever done was to save the lives of those I have sworn to protect. Every person I have ever killed has threatened Konoha." He caressed her cheek, wiping the moisture away. "I wouldn't have gone on the missions if I didn't truly believe that."
He thanked whatever gods were watching that he'd never been asked to. Would he have really been able to say no if Kakashi had been assigned to kidnap or kill a child? Could he have turned away from Sandaime if he'd been assigned to assassinate someone who hadn't threatened the village? To snuff out an innocent life for no reason but money? Those missions existed, it would be naive to think otherwise, and they were the kind of missions that would only be given to ANBU… Kakashi was just lucky he hadn't been given them.
Perhaps Minato had finally reached Sandaime in the end, after all. Perhaps he and Jiraiya had interceded to keep Sarutobi-sama from destroying the last bit of humanity Kakashi had left. He would never know for sure… but he was damn grateful. "With every skill I possess," he whispered fiercely, "with the last breath in my body, I will protect you, Suyo. I'll give my life for you. Just please, I beg you, don't hate me for the things I did all those years ago. Forgive me for having this mark on my shoulder. Please."
Suyo didn't ask any more questions. Finally she closed her eyes and nodded, a single tear running down each silver-streaked cheek, and the knot in his chest that had been his constant companion since that moment in her kitchen finally loosened. "I… I think I can live with that," she breathed, and Kakashi had to honestly struggle not to pass out from the rush of relief that swamped him at those simple words.
Never had he received such a gift as her forgiveness. "Thank you," he whispered as he bent to kiss her softly–a kiss of comfort rather than passion. A kiss to convince himself he hadn't dreamed this. Her lips were warm against his, soft, sweet, and blessedly real. The sun had fully set and the moon had risen while Suyo had told her story and cried herself out in his arms, but he didn't want to take her back to her apartment. He'd missed her too damn badly and he knew how close he'd come to losing her just now. He couldn't let her go yet. "Will you stay with me tonight?" he asked against her lips, praying she would say yes.
She only hesitated for a moment before nodding again. Her arms went around his shoulders and he kissed her one more time because he couldn't stand not to. He stood with her and carried her to his barren, almost spartan bedroom, only setting her down long enough to pull the blankets back and ease her shoes off before lifting her into his bed. He slid in beside her and pulled her close, drawing her to his chest and closing his eyes with relief when her arms went around him in return. Suyo's tense body slowly relaxed in his embrace.
Although it was late, neither of them slept. Kakashi could tell she was still awake by the rhythm of her breaths. "You're wrong, you know," Suyo suddenly whispered, surprising him even though he'd known she wasn't asleep. She hadn't made a sound since his confession. "I don't believe that you were ever just a weapon."
The absolute surety in her voice when she made that statement almost brought tears to his own eyes. "I wish you were right, but it's what I was raised to be," he sighed, remembering his earliest memories, when his father had been larger than life and still perfect in his childish eyes. His very first memory was training with White Fang before dawn, the way the kunai felt so huge and unwieldy in his little hands–long before it'd become an extension of his body. "Fire Country was at war when I was born, and we were losing badly. Konoha needed shinobi, even children, and I… well, my father was a genius, truly a legendary jounin, and I seemed to have inherited his skill, so he pushed me hard. I excelled, so he pushed me harder, and… I wanted him to be proud, so I became what they needed me to be." He shrugged with a casualness he didn't feel. "I was a graduate genin at five, made chuunin by six, and by the time I was Naruto's age, I'd been an elite jounin for over three years."
"They shouldn't have done that to you," she whispered, and oddly, he was glad that the list of his accomplishments didn't awe her as it did everyone else. "You were just a child."
He closed his eyes briefly as he remembered Minato's fury at what they'd done to Kakashi so long ago. "It wasn't until my father died and my jounin-sensei became my guardian that I learned how to be something besides the perfect shinobi," he said, almost feeling his sensei's fierce hug all over again. "Minato-sensei and my teammate Obito were the ones who taught me I didn't always have to be that weapon, no matter how good I was at it."
Suyo lifted her head, bracing her crossed arms on his chest to look down at him. She touched his face, skimming her fingertips over his nose, lips, cheeks, the scar through his eyelid. "I don't ever see a weapon when I look at you, Kashi."
That pet-name took the breath from his lungs. Until now, he hadn't realized how much he'd been waiting to hear her say it again, how convinced he'd been that she never would. "What do you see?" he whispered, unable to keep the near-desperation from his face as he waited for her answer with his heart in his throat. Her eyes were sharper than his Sharingan, penetrated more deeply than the Byakugan. Much as he ached to hear it, Kakashi couldn't fight down a shiver of fear as he waited for her answer.
Because he knew to his bones that whatever she saw would be the truth.