.
There are wounds that never show on the body that
are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.
Kakashi staggered forward, empty handed.
Haku fell to the ground at his feet, a kunai jammed in the front of his neck and blood pouring from the wound in a waterfall of crimson. His head impacted with the ground and the mask tumbled off his face, revealing the visage of a boy who didn't deserve to die in as horrendous of a fashion as he would, choking on his own blood and bleeding out into the dirt. His eyes were wide and one hand fluttered around his throat, his feeble attempts at dislodging the weapon for naught.
Kakashi had a hint of pity in his eyes as he stooped down and finished the job, pulling another kunai from his holster and severing Haku's windpipe in a single jerk; all I could hear was gurgling while Haku struggled for a breath he was incapable of intaking.
My mouth burned with acid but I managed to fight down the vomit—Naruto and Sasuke both failed in that venture.
He was so young. He was so fucking young.
A boy, a child, trapped in a world where those were a dime a dozen because reality crushed them underfoot without mercy. Up until that point, there were few times in my life as Kasumi Kurosawa where I felt old, really, truly old, the cumulative old that my soul must have been—that was one of them.
Kakashi turned towards us, his feet stumbling over each other at the movement, and a cold dread settled in my gut. He was battling blood loss and chakra exhaustion and from the fluttering of his eyes, the bare shake in his hand, he was losing.
I jolted forward even as I knew I couldn't get there in time to catch Kakashi as he collapsed.
My mind pulled up every bit of first-aid that had been drilled into us while we were still at the Academy, one of the few things I had deigned to pay attention to and learn sooner rather than later. I fell to my knees at his side and ignored the quivering of my own hands, my fingers ripping off a chunk of fabric from the bottom of my tank top to use as a bandage—why hadn't I packed first aid supplies, for fuck's sake, of all the things to forget—the information stored in my head warning me that I needed to patch up the gash on his arm; the amount of blood dribbling from the wound was a cause for concern.
There wasn't jack shit that I could do for his chakra exhaustion, but I could keep him from facing severe blood loss if I was diligent.
The injury to his arm was—thankfully—the lone major point of external damage. The other lacerations to his skin were nothing to scoff at but none of them were severe, either, not bleeding with enough fervour to warrant a risk to his life. I placed my hands on the bottom of my tank-top, prepared to further mutilate the shirt, when a jacket was tossed into my lap.
Naruto was standing at my shoulder, his eyes not yet dry and his arms bare.
"What—"
"Use that instead," he mumbled.
He had given me his jacket, his favourite jacket, the one that he wore every single day of his life no matter what the weather, to dismantle and use as makeshift bandages cover the wounds of our teacher, wounds that he no doubt felt some level of responsibility for.
I nodded and ripped a massive strip of fabric off of the hem of the jacket.
I pulled from the cleanest part of it for the sake of keeping the wounds as sterile as possible—nine times out of ten, when a minor wound killed somebody, it was through infection rather than blood loss. None of the bandaging needed to hold for long as, the moment it was available to me, I would have to remove all of the wrappings and disinfect the wounds.
"What are we going to do with the bodies?" Sasuke asked.
I spared him a glance. His skin was pale and clammy but he was on his feet, staring at the corpse of Haku with barely contained revulsion.
"It's only one body right now," I answered, tying off the last of the bandages.
His expression tightened. "You mean—"
"The big guy's alive."
"What do we do?" Naruto asked.
I stood, brushing off the dirt from my pants with hands that refused to steady. "I'm going to clean up."
"Why you?" Sasuke asked. He turned to me with taunt shoulders and narrowed eyes, a challenge in his posture. "I'm capable of—"
"Don't throw a hissy fit, I'm not saying you can't do it, just that you aren't the best suited to do it," I snapped. My chest was tight and my lips were dry and I was in no mood for squabbling with a boy whose pride was rearing it's head. "I'm going to clean up while you and Naruto start heading towards Tazuna's house with him. Unlike either of you, I can track you while you move ahead and catch up with you later. Bitch at me later, if you have to, but you're not stupid—you know I'm right about this."
The clenching of his jaw and the tightening of his fists was all the confirmation I needed.
Sasuke wasn't stupid. That fact was something he prided himself on, held over the heads of those around him, Naruto most of all. I knew that, when in doubt, shoving Sasuke into that corner was a somewhat-reliable way to bend him to my whims as taking an action deemed to be 'stupid', especially when said by somebody other than him, was one of the last things he'd want to do.
I held no qualms about manipulating a twelve-year-old for both his sake and my own when the need arose.
"I know where we are," Tazuna said. Of all of us, he was the least bothered by the overwhelming smell of blood, the sight of a dead body. "The house is this way."
Sasuke gave a curt nod and followed after Tazuna as he moved out of the clearing. Naruto went to mimic the movement but his feet halted as he brushed past me, his gaze lingering on my face, uncertain, nervous, scared.
He was shaking.
So was I.
That said, I had no plans of letting either of them deal with that mess. As much as I wanted them to know the reality of their world, their job, their lives, there was a line that separated a wake-up call from permanent mental scarring and, for a couple of twelve-year-olds, the snapping of a neck and the disposal of corpses via incineration crossed it.
I didn't want to do it either, not one bit, but it was my choice that landed us in that particular situation and the responsibility to fix things belonged on my shoulders and my shoulders alone, not theirs. I would have rather turned and walked away. I would have rather pretended none of it ever happened and kept going with the mission and not given it a second thought.
Neither of those were options, though. Zabuza had to be taken out of the picture. The bodies had to be cleaned up to avoid leaving evidence of the fight. The path I took and the actions I made had repercussions and I had to hike up my panties and deal with that.
I raised a hand to his shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze.
The group of three departed the clearing and I waited for their signatures to be a fair distance off before I approached the prone body of Zabuza, crouching behind his head.
His skin was cold against my palms as I placed one hand on his chin, the other behind his head, and, with a bit of chakra, simultaneously jerked his chin to the side and yanked back on his skull, snapping his neck clean in half in a single fluid motion. The sound, a sickening crack, echoed in my ears and shattered the silence that reigned over the clearing, reverberating with enough force that part of me wondered if Naruto and Sasuke and Tazuna might have been privy to it, far away as they were.
Dead.
One.
I had thought I felt old moments earlier—that sensation of being old, old, old, compounded in on itself as in that moment, I became a killer.
Once again, I fought down the bile and acid that raced up my throat and threatened to spill out of my mouth.
At least with Haku it had been Kakashi to land the final blow. I had contributed, without a doubt, but my hands weren't the ones to grasp the kunai and spill the blood—the same couldn't be said about Zabuza. A voice in my head reminded me that there was a chance they both would have died in the future regardless of my contribution, but the fact that it was a chance, no longer a certainty, at that point, lessened the comfort.
Nothing was certain. Nothing was certain.
Pondering on whether things would have gone one way or another was useless because it didn't matter any longer. I had made my choice, I had dug my grave, and for better or for worse, I had to lie in it.
I took in a breath and forced myself to focus, ignoring the hollowness of my chest and the numbness of my fingers, the cold that froze my core and the haze that clouded my mind. My job wasn't done yet. There was work to do. I could cry, wallow, languish in the absurd level of shitty that I felt when there wasn't a duty that needed completing.
I needed to finish cleaning up. I needed to burn the bodies.
There was no water to toss them into. I had no jutsu I could use to bury the bodies. There were no scrolls on hand that were capable of containing organic materials. The only option was to cremate them and scatter the remains in hopes of lessening the potency of their scent.
I supposed it was lucky that Kakashi had deigned to teach me a katon jutsu following the conception of Team 7.
While Kakashi had demonstrated the jutsu to me as a fireball, through practice and what minimal information I had pulled from the instructional scroll, I had found it easier to expel the flames in a stream—that happened to be ideal for what I was about to do. The added properties that the fire gained from being produced by chakra rather than any natural means helped, as well, with the flames that the jutsu produced burning brighter and causing more destruction, having been designed to do so.
Ten minutes in, with the bodies halfway to becoming ash, with my chakra reserves dented, was when the stench of charred flesh overwhelmed my nose and forced me to give in to the urge to gag.
Finally, I vomited.
I made it to the tree-line, the place where it could most easily be covered up, and emptied out the contents of my stomach, keeling over and retching for more minutes that I cared to admit. Tears streamed from my eyes, all of the muscles in my body contracted on instinct. Even after my stomach had emptied I dry heaved, my body attempting to purge what was no longer there, my free-hand gripping onto the nearest tree-trunk for dear life and managing to keep myself standing.
A hand dragged across my lips, wiping them clean.
I kicked up some soil and covered it up, tossed a clump of moss atop it, and trudged back into the clearing.
Finishing the process of burning the bodies consumed half my chakra reserves and all of my self control, but even when all that sat at my feet was ash, charred bones poking out of the piles, I wasn't done.
The bones had to be disposed of and the ashes had to be dispersed and the rest of the vomit and blood had to be covered with dirt.
My knees gave in and I fell back onto the ground, but I wasn't done.
The bones had to be disposed of and the ashes had to be dispersed and the rest of the vomit and blood had to be covered with dirt.
Sobs racked my body and my hands were shaking, trembling, far beyond my control and with a mind of their own, blurred through the tears that pooled in my eyes, but I wasn't done.
The bones had to be disposed of and the ashes had to be dispersed and the rest of the vomit and blood had to be covered with dirt.
I wasn't done, I wasn't done, I wasn't done.
There was so much to do, so much to fix.
I wasn't done.
A hand rose to clamp over my mouth and muffle the sob.
I wasn't done. The bones had to be disposed of and the ashes had to be dispersed and the rest of the vomit and blood had to be covered with dirt. I wasn't done.
A minute on the ground turned into two, into three, ten, fifteen.
When there was no more water left in my system to cry I picked myself up and carried on.
.
.
I sat at the kitchen table, the sounds of Tsunami puttering around the kitchen, the cacophony of pots and pans and glass clinking together in a sink, serving as white noise to occupy the processes of my mind.
On the table in front of me sat a scroll that held one of Kirigakure's legendary swords.
Konoha protocol dictated that I leave no trace of the fight. There could be no corpses, no bodily fluids, and no weapons remaining once I departed from the scene, meaning that the giant butcher knife—which somehow qualified as a sword—couldn't remain the in the clearing without causing a major infraction.
I sealed it up and brought it with me; I had no desire to admit that I disregarded protocol, nor did I want to end up having to lie about it in a mission report. Thus, there it was, rolling back and forth on the kitchen table, an innocuous sight to any unknowing eye.
What Konoha would do with the sword, what I would do with the sword, was a massive question mark. I had settled on stashing it in my bag and forgetting about it for the foreseeable future, lacking the mental capacity to give anything more than a passing thought at that moment. I was exhausted, my muscles aching from having spent the entire day leaping through the trees and my mind in chaos, the image of a kunai ripping into flesh flashing over my sight, the sound of bones snapping echoing in my ears, the fetor of blood refusing to vacate my nostrils.
The scroll jumped an inch off the surface of the table as a bottle was slammed down beside it.
I jolted, straightening in the chair, my hand reaching to my kunai holster and my eyes widening on instinct. Tazuna stared back at me, his hand falling to his side.
He sat down at the table, landing in the chair across from me with a heavy thud. "This is all we have."
"Thanks." I swept both objects up and pushed my chair back, making it to the doorway of the kitchen before I paused, looking over my shoulder at him. "Also, for future reference: if you aren't suicidal, I don't suggest startling a ninja. We don't take kindly to it."
I disappeared before he could reply.
The house was small, old, and creaked with every step that I took, a constant rhythm of groans accompanying me as I walked up towards the room Kakashi and I were sharing. The stairwell was narrow, as was the hallway that greeted me upon reaching the top of it. One of the four beat-up doors that lined the walls was cracked open.
That was where I was headed.
Kakashi lay on top of the bed, comatose, his mask in place, his skin covered in a litany of bandages. Naruto stood at his side and stared down at the massive stretch of wrappings that lined Kakashi's forearm, his hands clenched into fists. His chakra was bubbling and swirling, as it always did whenever Naruto was upset.
"You should go downstairs and help Tsunami with dinner," I murmured, leaning my shoulder against the doorway as I watched him. "I'm sure she'd appreciate any help we can give her."
Naruto paid my words no mind, not even looking up at me. "How bad is he hurt?"
My head hit the frame as well. "He'll be in some pain from them when he wakes up, and he might have a couple new scars, but otherwise he'll be fine. I just need to replace the bandages and disinfect everything."
"They're my fault."
"They are," I agreed, my voice blank, my expression blank, my eyes blank.
His hands shook and the first of the tears began to fall. "I didn't—I didn't mean to… I just wanted to help, because that's what I'm supposed to do, right? I just wanted to help! He wasn't supposed to…" Naruto raised a hand to scrub at his eyes, his voice cracking. "He wasn't supposed to get hurt… I didn't help you, and you almost got hurt! So then I couldn't let that happen to Kakashi, because then I'd be a bad teammate but I just—but I just made it worse." His eyes, those gorgeous, glistening azure eyes, were clouded and dulled by the tears that had pooled in their rims. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry! I don't… I should've listened…"
A lump settled in my throat. There were no words I had to offer as a response.
Instead, I pushed off of the doorframe, walked around the bed and wrapped my arms around him in an embrace that was all the comfort I could give. Like before, I couldn't tell him it was okay, I couldn't say that it wasn't his fault. It wasn't okay and it was his fault. He knew that, though, had said as much himself, which was what really mattered—there was no reason for me to rub salt in the wounds.
Naruto made no move to return the hug. He stood there, head bowed, shaking, and cried until the sobbing settled down into sniffles.
When he was done I stepped back and nodded towards the door. "Go on," I said, rubbing at my own eyes. "Tsunami was just starting when I headed up here."
.
.
Night came and I didn't want to sleep.
The first half of the night was spent running around the forest, pushing my body, exerting myself beyond the bounds that I knew were healthy, until I lacked the energy to do more than stumble back to the house in a mindless stupor.
I showered. I sat on my bed in the room Kakashi and I were sharing. I stared out the window for an hour. I attempted to close my eyes. I saw the deaths replayed in front of my mind's eye, saw the smoke, saw the flames. I opened my eyes again. I stared out the window for another hour.
Something was missing. Someone was missing.
There was nothing that could be done about that, though. I could ache for him all I wanted but it wouldn't change the fact that he wasn't with me, that he was back home, that he couldn't be there to hug me and run his fingers through my hair and talk down the horrors that haunted my thoughts.
I heaved a sigh, jumped off the bed, padded over to the bag that sat abandoned in the corner of the room and removed my pad of paper and drawing utensils from it.
He may not have been there to help me through the night, but there was another person in the house who was awake. Even if they weren't who I wanted and weren't somebody who would make any move to comfort me, weren't somebody that I would even want to try and comfort me, having somebody around was better than having nobody around.
The soft sounds of snoring greeted me as I pushed the door open and slipped into the room, closing it behind me. Naruto didn't react to my entrance at all, out cold on his cot; Sasuke shot me a sideways glance and a frown from where he sat on his bed, legs crossed under him, hands in his lap, poised in a meditative position.
His eyes stayed locked on me the entire way as I walked from the door to the window sill on the other side of the room, one which resembled the ledge that I had in my own room. A little narrower, lacking the plants, but with a clear view of the night sky, the stars, the moon, all the same.
I settled down and let the page consume my thoughts.
A couple of minutes passed in silence, save for the scratching of my pencil skating across the paper. The shaky outline of a head, a jawline, the contours of a nose, rough shape of the eyes.
"What are you doing in here?"
"You don't have to whisper," I murmured. "He sleeps like the dead."
"Answer my question," he pushed.
The lips, thin, tipping up at the corner.
"Why are you still awake?" I threw back at him, my eyes darting up and my eyebrow raising.
"I'm still awake in my room."
The edges of hair spiking out from a ponytail at the back of his head.
"I can't sleep," I said. My shoulders rose in a shrug. "You weren't asleep either."
Sasuke grunted and closed his eyes again, returning to his meditation.
I kept up my sketch, letting the familiar sounds of snoring and the familiar chakra signature a few feet away lull my nerves. I didn't expect to get any significant amount of sleep that night, truth be told, more I was hoping to manage a few hours of uninterrupted rest, knowing that the nightmares were inevitable—stress and trauma were a nasty combination.
I shaded the hair with long strokes, feather touches of the pencil.
"Who is that?"
I paused and cast him another glance. "My guardian."
He blinked. His face didn't change, nor did he say anything else, but I felt his chakra ripple and I got the distinct sense that I had surprised him with the answer.
The finished image stared back at me. A languid half-grin, relaxed posture, his back propped up against a tree and a book open in his lap, a few of the deer meandering in the background. It helped to have a vision of home, in some ways, but in others, it felt as if the ache had become more poignant rather than less.
I flipped the page and began anew, decorating the blank canvas with a different visage. Long hair that swept down her shoulders, down her back, much like my own. The gentle smile that I imagined her to wear stretched her lips and dimpled her cheeks, reaching all the way up into her eyes, which I knew without question were a rich caramel, though I lacked the tools to colour them as such. Her hands were clasped in front of her. The image was one I had drawn with such frequency that I could have completed it in my sleep.
Sasuke studied me the entire time in silence.
He hadn't asked the question I could tell he wanted to by the time I had put the finishing details on the sketch.
"It's my Mama," I said, my attention not straying from the pad in front of me, my legs drawn inwards and the page balancing on my knees. "As well as I can remember her, I mean."
The words were unbidden, slipping past my lips before I could fully register what I was saying, though I couldn't bring myself to care by that point—whether I would feel the same in the morning was questionable.
Again, Sasuke took the words without offering any of his own.
I wasn't bothered as I hadn't expected him to. It seemed that unless there was mocking to be done or questions to be asked or demands to be made, Sasuke was a person of few words.
Ignoring the leaden feeling of my limbs I closed up the sketch pad and stepped down, stretched my arms above my head. The sun would be up in three hours, at which point I would be accompanying Tazuna to the bridge to keep watch on him and the workers, something that would be easier if I got the chance to rest even a couple of hours. Going days without sleep was possible for me but it wasn't preferable, not when I would need my senses sharp and functional the next day.
"I'm going to sleep," I said. "You should too."
"Hn."
"Seriously."
"Hn."
"Fine, whatever."
"Hn."