Chapter 8:
Hatake Kakashi was a smart man.
This wasn't a boast, or pride talking. This was a gods-honest fact.
If you weren't smart, you didn't live to his age, typically, given the nature of his profession.
He was smart enough to already begin estimating the damages the village had suffered in the attack, both in material and manpower.
He could estimate the amount of money and time it would take to recover. He could determine what village defenses were vulnerable to a second attack, knew from memory what forces could be allocated to the various districts to shore them up until they could be fully repaired and the patrols renewed.
He was smart enough to determine, without having read a single report or analysis or debrief , the branches of Konoha's commercial economy that would be affected from the damaged districts.
Aburame silk would be in short supply for the foreseeable future, Akimichi farmland had remained untouched but the tremors from the clash between Naruto and Pein had torn down the storehouses for the grain just by observing how Choza kept looking towards the southern wall.
He was smart enough to know, truly know, despite all of the hyperbole and exaggerations beginning to spread across the village and the people within it how close this fight had been. How they'd barely survived, how Naruto won almost by the skin of his blood-tinged teeth.
Under Hiruzen and Jiraiya, Naruto had clearly come a long way, of that, there was no doubt, but the Akatsuki leader, that Pein, was a monster. A wholly different beast.
Frankly. If Naruto hadn't been here, he doubted the whole of the village would have been able to stop him.
Even Jiraiya and Hiruzen, who had been close enough to help in the battle itself had been forced to pull away in fear of becoming a hindrance. Them. The two most powerful ninja beside Tsunade herself.
Oh yes. Kakashi was well aware just how lucky they all were to be alive right now.
He didn't say anything of course. Didn't alarm anyone. No need. After an attack of this nature, morale, especially amongst the younger generation, the genin and chuunin, was remarkably high.
What should have been a moment of near collapse with the sanctity of the village, their home, being threatened and nearly destroyed, Naruto was turning into another victory. Already some were saying he was as strong as any of the Hokage.
That kind of inspiration, hope. Well…
He was smart enough to know he shouldn't break it. No matter how much his cynicism reminded him that even legends don't last forever…
So he kept quiet. He did the work that was assigned to him: filling out patrols, assigning teams, repairing defenses, delegating tasks.
Every objective was accomplished with a quiet sort of efficiency since the attack, all the while keeping his ear to the ground for signs of any change to Naruto's condition.
Last his sources told him, his former student was waking up and complaining about being stuck in bed, to the point that they'd sedated him just to keep him from breaking anything… again.
The thought made him smile.
All of these things, Kakashi knew and did because he was a smart man.
And so, two days after the attack, when he was called into the office of the Hokage, finding Tsunade, Jiraiya, Hiruzen and none other than his other student, Sakura, he was able to deduce quickly that this meeting likely had to do with the boy in question.
The grim looks on each of their faces, made his heart thump solidly beneath his rib cage. A bolt of fear running through him that he masked well enough, his exposed features never revealing a hint of it.
"What's going on?"
His question was simple, almost rude, barely waiting for the door to shut behind him before he blurted it out.
Had something happened to Naruto? Some unforeseen complication? Perhaps a lingering poison his Jinchuuriki abilities couldn't get rid of? Had the Kyuubi's chakra hurt him in some way?
The answer came from Sakura.
"Did you know about this too, Kakashi-sensei?"
Her question confused him, he looked to her, then to the others in the room, searching out for some hint or clue as to what was going on.
His sharp gaze found the answer on Tsunade's desk.
He couldn't see the contents, not exactly from where he stood by the door. But he'd been through enough hospital procedures to know what a blood test form looked like, even from a distance.
His mind clicked, a detail he'd heard days ago returning to the forefront.
Kushina was poisoned…
In all of the chaos, in all of the distraction in all the problems and issues… Tsunade wasn't the one to treat her.
She usually did on the few occasions when the woman required it.
It must have fallen to Sakura.
He turned his eyes to Jiraiya and Hiruzen. One stood at the doorway of the balcony looking solemn and quiet, the other with closed eyes and grim face, hands laced over his cane.
He looked to his student, knowing his suspicions were correct, but deciding to play it safe regardless.
He smiled, for all the world looking as careless and nonchalant as ever.
"What are you talking about Sakura-chan?"
When she looked up at him, any lingering doubt was wiped from his mind as fresh tears percolated through her tear ducts and over her bloodshot eyes, staring at him with an anger that could only be born from hurt.
"Don't lie to me, sensei."
He felt his shoulders slump just a bit, and the urge to pull out his book and turn his attention to it to avoid her look was strong, but he held it down.
"I suggest you forget about it, Sakura," he half stated, half pleaded.
"Forget about it?" She looked furious, but her tone was tinged with something he'd seldom heard directed at him from her.
Horror.
She looked around at each of them, eyes frantically searching for someone that would look as horrified as her. Some ally in this.
"I don't know where all of you get off! But Naruto's my friend! I'm not just going to… to fucking lie about this! His mother is alive!
"This isn't a hornet's nest you want to kick up," he warned. "It's not going to end well."
He could see her fists clench, the muscle of her jaw bunching up, no doubt she was gritting her teeth and he was reminded of the fact that Sakura could in fact, be the most stubborn of his students if she really set her mind to something.
She looked around to the others in the room, no longer looking for an ally but glaring at them with a palpable, tangible disappointment.
"You've… You've all been lying to him!
"We've protected him," he corrected, his voice cracking like a whip. "Kushina is-"
"It was a mistake, Kakashi," Jiraiya interrupted, turning to him with a look that could be described as pleading.
He glared at the man, fingers clenching into a fist inside his pocket.
"Oh, that makes it all better then," he chirped, voice dripping with a venomous, biting sarcasm. "Silly me. Maybe if I wasn't here for it; it'd have been that easy for me too."
The Sannin visibly flinched and Kakashi saw Tsunade's shoulders bunch, fingers digging into the skin of her arms. Angry. Angry at him for picking at that wound.
Tough shit…
He turned his head, looking to Sarutobi. The old man looked worn, with skin like old leather filled with creases and jagged lines. Thinner, more frail than Kakashi remembered, the receding hairline all but gone now. His eyes were downcast, not looking at any of them.
Kakashi felt his teeth grinding together.
"This secret is poisonous, Kakashi," Jiraiya answered, sidestepping the accusation.
"For who? You?" He felt his shoulders rise and fall in a careless shrug. "Far as I can tell Naruto is doing just fine. His parents are dead. Better they stay that way."
"You can't mean that!" The absolutely horrified look on Sakura's face twisted his gut, but his heart was cold as steel in his chest.
"I do. That woman is not his mother. She lost the right!"
"What the hell happened!?" the girl suddenly screamed, shooting to her feet, passing her eyes over everyone in the room. "Whatever it was, it's not something we can't try to-"
"She tried to kill him, Sakura!"
His shout stopped her cold, and Kakashi could see the dumbstruck shock on her face as she tried to wrap her head around the fact that he was saying a mother tried to kill her own child.
"She's not his mother," he repeated with steel-banded conviction. "She's damage." He looked to Tsunade. "And there's no reason to dig this up. Let it stay dead and buried."
There was a silence in the room, thick and heavy with thoughts and quiet condemnations.
"You're lying to him…"
Sakura's voice was meek, timid, a far cry from the kunoichi she'd become in recent years.
"All of you! He thinks of all of you like family! He trusts you like you're actually his parents and all you've done is lied to him his whole life. If I hadn't run that test how many more years? How much longer would you four be sitting here, smiling to his face and keeping this from him!?"
"As long as necessary!"
"He has a right to know, Kakashi." Jiraiya spoke up again looking at him with an obvious disappointment that he didn't agree with the notion; and Kakashi, for the first time in his life felt the genuine urge to hurt the sanctimonious letch.
What the hell gave him the right to judge anything?!
"I agree." Tsunade finally spoke up, her shoulders relaxing as though she'd just dumped a weight off of them. "There's never gonna be a 'good time' to talk about it. There's never gonna be a moment where this conversation is gonna be "easy" and he does have the right to know." She swiveled her eyes towards the still-silent Sandaime. "And I think you agree with that."
The God of Shinobi opened his eyes, looking straight at Tsunade with a piercing, fixed gaze for a solemn moment before he turned his eyes towards Kakashi.
It was all the answer the former Anbu needed.
'No…'
It was a strange detached sort of horror he felt at the look in the man's eye, and now, he, not Sakura found himself standing in a room alone, staring at the other four in disappointment.
Disappointment that was rapidly being replaced with a palpable, burning anger.
"Wish I had the luxury of forgetting what she did," he muttered, and he saw Sakura flinch back away from him. He was so angry he barely recognized his own voice. "Sounds nice. Easy.
"No one's forgotten what-"
"I think you have." He cut off Jiraiya with a glare. "It fades for all of you. Gets a bit more muddy. A bit more distant. Little less fresh, right?
He reached up to his headband, dragging it up, revealing the Sharingan eye spinning slowly in his iris. "Tell me how that luxury feels. I'd like to know."
He saw Tsunade's eyes widen; a horrified recognition beginning to dawn over her features.
"I don't get to forget. It doesn't fade for me. That punch doesn't suddenly turn into a slap, and that choking doesn't turn into a cough…" He glared at the three, trying to convey all the disdain and rage he felt burning in his chest through his eyes alone.
But he didn't know what to say. For all his intelligence, for all his genius, he didn't know what he could say to turn their minds. Their minds were all made up a long time ago.
This… Sakura, all of it was just an excuse… a formality.
So he did the only thing he could.
He walked away.
"To hell with all of you."