Jiraiya went to meet Kakashi at the door, and just managed to catch him as he fell, exhausted once again. Carrying the kid inside and laying him gently back on the sofa he turned to Hideki and asked
"So, what did you think of him? Do you believe me yet, or are you still sceptical?"
"Hmmmm. I'm impressed for sure. That was quite the show he put on there. But those nin weren't much... and he's drained himself again. Don't you think we should have stepped in?" Hideki replied.
Jiraiya looked towards the window. "I didn't realise how little chakra he'd regained. By my estimates he should have recovered more than that by now. I mean, one clone and two kawarimi shouldn't be enough to do that, surely. And anyway, you were free to step in at any point. I wouldn't have stopped you."
"But he used that electric fist thing at the end there. I think that was what really wiped him out. That's an impressive technique... But we should go and interrogate those Iwa nin. Jiraiya." Hideki led the way out of the room to where the three men had woken up and were making muffled sounds and struggling against their bindings.
Thinking back, Jiraiya realised he had forgotten about the raikiri Kakashi had used. He had been too surprised by the boy's restraint in not killing his opponents to pay proper attention to the fight itself, especially after the strange spar he had shared with the kid back in Konoha.
Putting that to the back of his mind for the time being, Jiraiya went straight for the big Iwa nin and hefted the struggling man into Hideki's workshop, which could be accessed only from the back yard, and dumped him in a corner. As much as he was itching to find out what they were up to, and whether they were rogues or acting on behalf of their home village, he knew that his old friend had much better interrogation skills than he did, so he hoped Hideki might offer to take that task on so he could get back to Kakashi,
Hideki must have read Jiraiya's thoughts, as when he came into the workshop a moment later with the other two shinobi tucked under his huge arms, he immediately suggested that he deal with them alone.
Relieved, Jiraiya headed inside and sat heavily on the settee beside Kakashi, gazing sadly at the child's half-hidden face. He really wanted to hope that there was a better future out there somewhere for this kid and others like him, but Jiraiya had been a shinobi for too long to retain any illusions that this life could ever be an easy one. And he knew all too well that it was even more difficult and dangerous for those who happened to be especially talented in the shinobi arts. He had seen it with his own teammate Orochimaru, who seemed to become more crazy with each passing year. As much as Jiraiya had been jealous of his teammate's abilities as a child, he was wise enough now to be glad he had not been labelled a genius at a young age. Being the 'dunce' of an admittedly stella team had meant Jiraiya had been allowed to progress at his own pace, and he was eternally grateful to Sarutobi-sensei for that chance.
Poor Kakashi had practically been forced into being a shinobi before he could even walk. Jiraiya remembered one of the few occasions he had visited Hatake Sakumo between Kakashi's birth and Sakumo's eventual suicide. The kid must have been about two years old at most. Jiraiya had been invited into the kitchen, as he recalled, to see some tiny little brat sitting at the table filling teacup after teacup with water. The first thing he had noticed was that the kid looked like a miniature version of Sakumo, and the second thing was that the boy was using a nature manipulation technique to summon water to his fingertips and fill the cups.
Sakumo had proudly introduced the kid as his son, the 'Scarecrow', and the little boy had beamed up at Jiraya maniacally and carried on filling up his teacups.
The kid had been downright frightening really, and Jiraiya had vowed to himself right then that if he ever had children he wouldn't train them in the shinobi arts until they were at least tall enough to reach the table without having to sit on a pile of cushions.
Little Kakashi hadn't been given that chance, but it wasn't too late. Fourteen year olds were still viewed as children in most cultures, and although Kakashi was far from childlike in many respects he still deserved the opportunity to express himself freely and to behave with abandon as every child should.
This time around, Kakashi was out of it for three days.
During that time Hideki had managed to learn, after only a few short minutes of questioning, that the small team of Iwa shinobi were part of a larger force stationed about twenty miles north-west of Akamatsu on the border of Earth Country, and who had been ordered to enter the town and capture Kakashi. They claimed to be alone in the town, but Jiraiya felt sure that he and Kakashi had sensed a larger number of earth-style chakra signatures in the area earlier on. But there was always the possibility that although they could use earth-style chakra, the shinobi the signatures belonged to were not from the Land of Earth.
After the initial round of questioning Hideki had reported back to Jiraiya, who wanted to try to extract a number of additional bits of information from the three man cell. It wasn't so easy the second time around, as the captured shinobi had had the chance to confer on tactics, but Jiraiya was able to gather that they didn't actually know who had given the order to capture Kakashi, which seemed highly suspicious. Various theories began to take shape in his mind, which he kept to himself for the time being.
Meanwhile, he had sent a hawk back to Konoha for instruction on what to do with the prisoners. He was in favour of letting them go back to their base camp to report their failure, and then waiting to see what, if anything, developed from there, and he hoped his old Sensei would share his line of thinking. These three were nowhere near powerful enough to pose a real threat to Konoha, so it would be more useful in the long run to let them go. Their shame at having not only failed in their mission, but having been captured by their target would mean they would be unlikely to mention it, so their superiors in Iwa would remain unaware that they had divulged tactical information.
Jiraiya had a feeling that these three, and probably a lot of others too, were puppets being controlled by more than one master, but he wouldn't be able to confirm that hunch if the ninja were either killed or taken back to Konoha as prisoners. Even though their actions were technically a breach of the peace treaty which had been so dearly bought, if someone else was meddling in order to rekindle a war between the two old enemies then the best option at the moment was to ignore them. If it was a hoax and Iwa had not given the order to capture Kakashi, then killing or capturing the three shinobi could, quite justifiably, lead Iwa to declare war on Konoha for breaching the treaty.
A day and a half after the hawk Takamaru had flown out, he returned with a note from the Hokage.
Sarutobi concurred with Jiraiya's thoughts, and ordered him to release the Iwa shinobi, explaining that an ANBU team had been sent out to monitor Iwa's actions on that stretch of the border.
Jiraiya was glad of this, although he couldn't help but feel apprehensive about the coming weeks and months. This was supposed to be a holiday for Kakashi, and if someone - whoever it was - was trying to get hold of him it wasn't going to make for a relaxing break.
After talking it through, Jiraiya agreed with Hideki that it was better if the kid knew as little as possible about it, and discussed what they would say when he woke up. They decided would tell Kakashi that the three had been questioned, and had given away where they were stationed, but not what their mission was in Fire Country, and that the Hokage had ordered that they be released. WHether or not he would buy that story remained to be seen.
Kakashi made fast progress with his reading under Jiraiya-sama's instruction At least, that was what he was constantly being told. He knew he was usually a fast learner, and the Sharingan certainly helped a lot, but Kakashi still thought he was progressing far too slowly. Jiraiya had written a story just for him, and it felt as though he was doing the old man a disservice by not having got to the end of it yet. It had been four days after all!
But writing was another matter altogether. Kakashi found that he simply could not do it by copying Jiraiya's motions with Obito's eye. For some reason, even though he copied the movements perfectly, when he came to putting his own marks down on the paper they came out in a mess rather than the perfect, neat strokes he could see in his mind's eye.
Apparently there was an art to calligraphy, which was closely linked to the art of the sword. With Hideki being a master swordsman, Jiraiya had asked him to try to guide Kakashi in both arts at the same time.
"Ready then kid?" Hideki called as Kakashi emerged from the house into the yard. The big swordsman was standing in the centre of the space brandishing two katana expertly, a smile playing at his lips. Kakashi nodded and took a rather slow step forward just as HIdeki swung his arm, sending one of the swords spinning towards him. It must have taken a second for Kakashi's mind to catch up with his body, as he looked down and saw the sword grasped firmly in his own hand. He must have looked surprised, as HIdeki laughed.
"Hey kid, didn't expect that, huh? Well you've got amazing instincts I'll give you that!"
Kakashi bowed slightly. "Thank you HIdeki-san" he said politely, not knowing where this whole training session was supposed to be heading, and feeling a bit unsure of himself. As it was supposed to be related to calligraphy, surely Hideki-san wasn't going to go full-out on him, was he? Kakashi had heard of calligraphy being used as a training method for the sword, but not the other way round, and was intrigued to find out how it might work.
Little did he know that Hideki was as interested as to the outcome as he was. Having never tried anything like this before, he wasn't really sure how to go about it, and hoped that he could be of some help. The kid had incredible reflexes and fought and moved like nothing HIdeki had seen before in all his years, but how to translate that grace and skill into calligraphy was something he wasn't sure about. He was planning to start with some of the basic kenjutsu patterns and link them back to certain strokes in calligraphy in an exact reversal of the way kids would normally learn the art of the sword. It was the way he himself had been taught, starting off with the brush and moving on to the sword, taking the coordination and patience needed for calligraphy through into swordplay. WHile Kakashi was very good with a sword he hadn't been taught in a systematic way, so Hideki guessed, correctly, that he wouldn't know all of the set patterns most kenjutsu users would know by rote. Therefore the lesson would need to start from the basics.
But first there was that damn politeness to beat out of the kid, in a purely metaphorical sense, of course. Hideki grinned.
"Right then, I'm going to start by teaching you some basic patterns, and we'll take it from there. Take up your sword and mirror exactly what I do."
And so the lesson began. Hideki's movements were swift and he did not hang around when demonstrating the patterns, so Kakashi uncovered Obito's eye to help him out. Before he could lift the hitae-ate though, Hideki's large hand covered his.
"No. Don't use that. You don't want to start relying on it too much. This should be your trump card not your default position. Besides, you don't need that eye to master these moves, I'm more than certain you can do it by yourself."
Kakashi had considered it for a few moments. Hideki had a good point, but then he had promised Obito they would see the future together so he owed him a few training sessions and activities other than just watching the life leave a shinobi's face over and over again. But Kakashi knew he needed to rest the eye for the time being, so he decided against it and covered it back up, just not for the reasons HIdeki had advocated.
Nodding, the big man turned to continue the lesson, and although he had to concentrate hard, Kakashi found that he was enjoying himself quite a bit, and that learning to handle the big brush in the sand pit was as much of a thrill as using the katana. This came as a surprise to him in two ways. Firstly, he had never paused to realise that he actually found there was a certain satisfaction - he hesitated to call it pleasure - to be had in practicing the skills he had learned, as wrong as that seemed because those skills were all designed to end life. Secondly, he realised that being able to write in the sand was actually something he felt proud of. He had accomplished something that was not destructive and which could help to bring about peace. It was a small step, but Kakashi felt that, for the first time in his life, he had accomplished something that was worthwhile, and he wanted to keep going with it.
By the end of the day Kakashi was completely exhausted but had learned the eight basic strokes which made up the kaisho style of calligraphy. While eight strokes didn't seem like an awful lot to have learned in an entire day, with those strokes Hideki had told him he could write many different characters, so Kakashi was not completely displeased with his progress.
He left the training ground with a smile on his lips, and it remained there throughout the evening meal, during which his sharp eyes did not miss the glances his two elders kept on sharing. They were clearly amused at his happiness, but Kakashi didn't care. He felt free, and even when he tucked himself into his futon and Naruto's little face popped into his mind's eye he didn't feel overwhelmed with longing. Instead he felt hopeful. When he got back he could read stories to Naruto, and perhaps even help teach him how to read. The usual nightmares did not plague him that night.
So hello again! I am back after what, 3 years or something.
A lot has happened in that time for me, and I have just come back to this again.
In short, I have been cheated on by my fiancee and partner of 10 years; moved to a different town into my first place on my own; met a whole load of new friends and been introduced to a wonderful man; and got married! Woo! So lots of change.
Also, in the land of Naruto a lot has changed which makes my story redundant as a piece of speculation on 'what happened to Kakashi between Obito's death and the start of the Naruto series'. That has been answered, quite wonderfully I thought, in the Kakashi ANBU arc of the anime which I loved. Never mind, it matters not.
Still, I hope that this didn't disappoint too much - I know nothing much happened but the story behind the Iwa shinobi is intended to have significance so hopefully I won't leave it another 3 years before adding the next 2500 words!
Until next time.