Part VI | Chapter 1
A ruthless gust of wind made his foot slip out of the branch. Hansuke corrected his error quickly, hoping none of the boys had noticed it. Well, hoping at least Nikato hadn't noticed it, he could be sure Kisamaru's eyes would never miss anything.
Before they went on this mission, right as they were passing through the corridor of the Hokage Tower, Kisamaru had passed beside Hansuke, like the hissing of the wind, voice low and cutting, as he whispered that he had already realised Gohama was the Kyura jinchuriki. Hansuke had stopped and the words floated through his tired ears, but he couldn't catch Kisamaru's intention. And Kisamaru had walked away before he could even see his face, his back making the curve of the corridor.
Hansuke continued to ruminate over them, trying to dissect the tone so unlike Kisamaru's smoother one. Was he hurt, was he outraged, was he warning him? Hansuke still hadn't asked him, because asking that would mean talking about it and their team had silently agreed there would be no talking about Gohama's defection yet.
Somehow, they had also all silently agreed that after the four-week mission in northern Fire Tsunade-sama had shoved into their hands - perfectly aware of its close border to Snow – the team would make a detour through Bukigakure. So now they were cutting through a vicious wind, a few minutes away from the destroyed village.
The Hokage had been let her famous short temper free when they had first returned from the mission, two team members missing. With her enraged explosion, they had been lucky the only causalities had been her desk, chair and paperweights – Hansuke was sure she had them just so she could throw them.
Once she had gained reign of her rage enough to actually listen, Hansuke had relayed half the truth, omitting his visit to Buki and Gohama pushing him away. All the information Tsunade-sama had been left with was that Kyura Gohama was the jinchuriki, knew of a village top secret and had defected, making her a high risk traitor and in need of being hunted down, and that her best shinobi, Hatake Kakashi, was missing after visiting Kyura Tsukate.
Their team had convinced Tsunade-sama to wait for Kakashi's return before sending hunter-nin after Gohama. Her sharp golden eyes cut through his hazel ones, her words even more piercing. "What if she killed him?". His answer, "She wouldn't. She had him under her hand and she didn't kill him then." The Hokage trusted Hatake's sense of self-preservation more than Hansuke's words and so she let them go, a mission in northern Fire in their hands.
As they entered the Village limits, a flutter of Gohama's chakra buzzed through their cores and pathways, Nikato letting out a small yelp. If there was a chakra barrier to warn her of anyone's presence, it meant Gohama had expected to stay there for a long period. Hope lightened in his chest as he sped through the rooftops towards her childhood home. A glance to his right showed him Kisamaru had already activated his byakugan, the veins and a deep frown creasing the skin around his translucent eyes.
"There are traps." He warned and Nikato and Hansuke easily fell behind him, placing their feet wherever he had placed them before.
Once they entered the Kyura compound, Hansuke's eager voice asked, "Do you see anyone?"
And the hope of before was ripped away from him at the heavy silence that answered his question. They stepped onto the silent house in a blur, Hansuke following Kisamaru as he jumped up the stairs and then he was kneeling in front of Kakashi, his hands glowing with green healing chakra.
Hansuke just stood there. His eyes fixed on the stark dry blood crusted to the side of Kakashi's nose. His ears roared with the sound of his heart, his ribs thumped with each beat. He had always known Kakashi wasn't indestructible, he had seen him brought down by wounds, almost on the threshold of death, even on the floor of that same house, and yet there was something gut-wrenching disconcerting about watching the Hatake Kakashi fallen, pale and yellow, bleeding as any other man.
Through his funnel vision on the closed blood tainted sharingan, Hansuke didn't even notice it was the first time he was seeing Kakashi's face.
"Hansuke-sensei." A hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him. "Sensei."
He snapped his head to the side, finding Nikato's dark eyes staring up at him, wide and trembling with fear. "What are your orders?"
Hansuke shook his head and used his fingers to massage his temples, trying to bring himself back from the daze. "Search the house for any signs of Gohama and send out your owls." Nikato nodded, reassured by his deep commanding tone, and left. "Kisamaru, how's the situation?"
His hands were shaking at his side and Hansuke forced his strengthless fingers into a tight fist, as his nails bit into the skin of his palm.
"Chakra exhaustion. It's the sharingan. Overuse, I think. His brain seems to have suffered some damage from it."
A deep trembling breath left his lungs as he realised Kakashi wasn't dead, his mind freer now that the fear didn't hold it in its cold grasp. "Can you heal it?"
"Not here." And still his sure chakra-covered fingers continued to rest on Kakashi's head, his green light illuminating the dark room, above the cold light of a cloudy day. "There's a sewed wound in his lower stomach, approximately three days hold, same as a broken rib."
"Do you think it was Gohama?"
"It's partially chakra healed and that's her stitching technique. If it was her why would she heal it?"
"A spar?"
Hansuke tried. None of it seemed to make any sense. Kakashi had been missing for more than a month, why would Gohama try to kill him now? Had she tried to kill him? Why would she leave without finishing the job? There were also no signs of a fight. The exterior wall of that room was broken, but Hansuke remembered it had been already like that on the night of the massacre.
"There's trace of some foreign chakra. Tailed beast chakra. Most of it was sucked by the sharingan, perhaps in an attempt at healing itself."
His muscles jerked as he felt Nikato approach them from behind.
"The owls returned, she's not here. Downstairs there are some of her clothes but what's important is gone. Gohama's gone. And, Hansuke-sensei, it's, um, I think that… Kakashi and Gohama, they…" His voice trailed off, as he stood beside Hansuke, also looking down at Kakashi as Kisamaru finished healing whatever he had to heal.
"They what?"
"It's really bad, isn't it, Hansuke-sensei?"
There was a childishness to his voice, suddenly remembering him of the twelve-year-old boy from a civilian background, who had joined his genin team and had looked up at his sensei in search of reassurance and courage. There was none he could offer now. He had always been good at masking his dread and showing only unwavering confidence to his team, that was a sensei's job, but now…
What could Hansuke answer to that? It was really bad, but everything would be all right? They weren't children anymore, they wouldn't be fooled by the assurance in his smile and fear trembling behind his eyes. Hansuke felt childish too, as he hadn't felt in years.
For the first time since this entire disarray started on that border between Fire and Hot Waters, Hansuke no longer believed things would be all right, his hope crumbled, kicked and torn apart by the sight of Hatake Kakashi, the Kitsune, his ANBU taicho, the Copy-nin, as a rag doll, his greatest weapon a bleeding mess. All because of Gohama.
Kisamaru's chakra washed out and he looked up at Hansuke. "We need to get him to Konoha's hospital."
"Konoha's too far away. I know where to take him. Nikato, find me something where we can transport him and put everything you find downstairs into a scroll. Oh, and find his mask."
"Aren't we going to look for Gohama? My owls found a trail."
"The priority right now is making sure Kakashi is safe."
Hansuke could feel Nikato's objection as he shifted in his feet, but he never voiced it, instead moving out to obey his command. He returned quickly enough, with a wood board and a futon. Hansuke lowered himself into a crouch, his hands wrapping around Kakashi's ankles, as he stared at Kisamaru, waiting for the sign so they could match their movements and move Kakashi safely.
"Wait, Sensei." Kisamaru urged.
His hand pulled the slump man's shoulder, exposing the back of it. Light half-moon nicks marked his pale skin there. Hansuke's guts cringed at the sudden image that spurred in his mind, the disgust turning into a bitter ball of anger in his stomach.
"Nail marks. Signs of a fight." Kisamaru commented with his professional medical tone, unintentionally revealing his lack of experience, something Hansuke had no interest in knowing. It was enough the too-much-information that left Nikato's mouth when he got drunk.
So that was what Nikato had stuttered about before.
"Those are sex marks." Hansuke explained with a curt tone.
His Hyuga eyes lifted up to his, a frown creasing the skin between his eyebrows. "Why would Gohama leave se—?" He cut off his words at the same time his eyes widened in realisation and then he had the audacity of showing pity, before blushing and turning his eyes away from Hansuke.
"Let's go." He ordered, quick and harsh.
Nikato watched as another shadow passed by the sliver between the white door and the tiled floor. He was certain the ANBU were forcing him to wait so he could overthink everything that had happened since that curse of a mission.
It was their loss, though. He had had more than a week stuck in Konoha to brood and overthink all he had to overthink. On the first days, he had curled himself into his bed and cried until his eyes had no more tears to spill. Mum had come by his room every day to bring him food, sitting on the bed, her soft fingers brushing down his hair. He had asked one day, when the cracks in his heart felt too much, for her to cuddle him as she used to when he was a kid. Nikato was twenty-one now and a tokubetsu jonin who had killed people with his bare hands, but it didn't matter.
Mum had told him he could talk to her, but he couldn't. Tsunade-sama had marked the imperative secrecy of Gohama's reason to defect. Konoha's involvement in Bukigakure's massacre needed to remain a well-kept village secret, only the Hokage, the Council and the ANBU that had been assigned the mission knew of, and now their team too. If it came out Konoha's diplomatic relationships would fall into chaos. Buki had been an ally after all.
Nikato had laid there in his bed, always waking up with the first light of the days, his heavy eyes pinned to his bedroom window. Gohama had had the habit of coming there before their missions, knocking on the glass to wake him up and forcing him to get up and get ready. While he was having his breakfast, eyes lidded and puffy with sleep, she would settle Toshi's bowl beside his family's goldfish. "See you later." She always said. He was sure she had said it too, before their last mission, but she hadn't come back, and Hansuke-sensei had come by the house to see Nikato and take Toshi with him.
Nikato had wanted to have her goldfish, but he couldn't ask that of Sensei, not when he smiled a sad heartbroken smile trying to convey reassurance and hope. Nikato pretended it was reassuring, he pretended he didn't see how devastated Hansuke-sensei was, how he seemed to hold himself together by a thin layer of glue.
In turn, Kisamaru had that seriousness of him plastered into his face, eyes sharp and cold, spine straight and mouth shut. It annoyed him, made his skin prickle, but Nikato had no energy to fight him, to pull him out of his own shell.
They didn't talk about it, but somehow they had all silently agreed to make their detour towards Bukigakure, the last place where Hansuke-sensei had seen Gohama.
Now he was in an ANBU hideout interrogation room in the Land of Snow. It seemed the end of the hidden village meant Snow was free for the taking and most hidden villages had hideouts there, with only the missing-nin ruling factions to worry about and no actual foreign diplomacy.
The door of the room opened and two ANBU entered, one with a lizard mask and the other a mouse. Nikato's hands dampened and sweat soaked into his back. He had never been interrogated before and ANBU were famously known for extracting information out of their targets with ease and violence. He still didn't understand why they were being kept locked in the hideout and forced into being interrogated by their own comrades, even if in the black ops, they were still fighting on the same side.
Okay, maybe he understood, but it didn't mean he was happy about it. Everyone was in the dark. Kakashi still hadn't woken up. Kisamaru after healing him in the infirmary unit of the hideout – the reason why Hansuke had led them there – had explained there was no lingering damage to his brain and the worst of his condition was actually just chakra exhaustion. Whatever information the ANBU wanted to find Gohama, their team wasn't privy to it.
Hansuke had been furious when they had received the information that the Hokage ordered them to be interrogated. He had complained about them being treated as traitors when there were no reasons for their loyalty to be questioned.
The mouse moved to stand behind him, while the lizard leaned back on the table, arms crossed, narrowed eyes cutting into him from porcelain slits.
"When was the last time you saw Kyura Gohama?" The lizard asked.
Nikato didn't answer, his defiant gaze intent on the ANBU before him.
"Was Kyura in Buki when you found Hatake Kakashi? Were you an accomplice to her defection?" Lizard continued to spill question, but Nikato didn't listen to them.
Nikato felt mouse move behind him, his steps dragging onto the tiled floor. A hand came down on his shoulder and Nikato forced himself not to jolt from the sudden contact. Sharp nails dug into his skin, biting into muscle and tightening around bone.
"Not answering will only bring you trouble." Mouse whispered beside his ear, his grasp tightening as a warning. "Only shinobi who have something to hide keep silent."
Lizard intervened. "A loyal shinobi should want a village traitor to be caught and punished. Any information you can give us will help hunt down Kyura Gohama."
"I won't help you get to her." Nikato hissed, shaking his torso, so that painful hand would let him free.
"You are assisting a missing-nin, who defected Konoha, and attempted to kill one of its best shinobi—"
"We still don't know what really happe—"
"It's treason. You are protecting a traitor of Konoha. It's treason and village nin pay for treason with death."
Mouse chuckled right next to his ear and it crawled down his spine as a shudder. "Not so tough now, huh?"
"Take what you want from my silence. I'm not a traitor."
"What about Kyura Gohama? Do you consider her a traitor?" Lizard asked.
That was a complicated question. She had defected, but there were reasons, reasons he couldn't share and that probably wouldn't matter. Gohama was of high-risk to Konoha, probably already in the Bingo Book, probably already being hunted down.
Nikato decided for a curt "No", but deep down knew that any defecting nin was a traitor to a village, independent of any moral justification.
"She tried to kill Hatake Kakashi, are you going to deny that too?"
"Kakashi-senpai is still unconscious, we don't know what happened."
Mouse chuckled again, more mocking this time and less dangerous. "Why the fuck would you defend a traitorous whore?"
"What did you call her?" Nikato growled, his eyebrows falling into a frown of pure hate.
"A whore, obviously. Did she fuck you too, like she fucked dear Hansuke-sensei?"
"Shut the fuck up!"
"The Hyuga? Did you pass her around the team? Or maybe she liked you all at the same time, what a good little slut."
Nikato growled again, his fury heating up as a ball of melted lead on his chest needing to get out. He fought against the hold on his shoulders, shaking from side to side.
"Oh come on, why act so outraged?" Mouse's touch became friendly, his tone light. Then his mask neared the side of Nikato's face, right above his ear, the disgust that had lacked before pouring into his next words. "We know she fucked the Copy-nin so she could kill him, like the fucking Otafuku Gai whore she is.
Nikato snapped his head back harshly, his skull hitting mouse's mask. The ANBU released his grasp on him with a curse. Lizard moved in immediately, and Nikato threw him back with a kick, before turning around, his fist ready to pouch mouse's stomach. It never reached him, lizard had snatched his wrist and was now holding both of his arms. Mouse moved in, Nikato tried to shove him back with both his feet, but he evaded them effortlessly.
Unsurprisingly, he found himself being punched several times, in the face and stomach. Each hit made his guts tremble in pain, shocks running up and down his spine, his lungs seize and him breathless. Nikato tried to bear the attack without any exterior sign of pain, but the thing about hits to the face was that they left people dazed and he couldn't control his grunts.
It seemed to be never ending, until he found himself being thrown down onto the cold hard floor. The door opened and closed behind him and once again he was alone in the room, an arm gently cradling his side and his eyes clenched shut as he tried to get his breathing back to normal.
The coughing made it all hurt even more and the taste of iron in his mouth, from a lash on his lip probably, made him gag. He spit and turned around to lay on his back, blurry eyes staring up at the white lights of the ceiling and willing the pain to subside.
Everything was so fucking white in that compound.
Nikato didn't know how long he laid there, silently regretting every decision he had ever made in his life. How could things have crumbled to the ground overnight? Just because of that fucking mission and that fucking missing-nin that decided to expose the truth to Gohama. Everything would have been so much better if they had never known of it, including Gohama. What did it matter what Konoha had done, Kakashi-senpai, Sensei? She had meant nothing to them at the time and now that she did they took care of her, at least Sensei did. He loved her and she spit him in the face for it.
If Gohama had just came back to Konoha with them, if she had just obeyed the team leaders orders and killed the target as she had been commanded to do, they would all have been getting drunk and laughing at Ippon. Nikato didn't understand her obsession. He understood her pain and grief over the massacre, but he just didn't get why she couldn't move on from it, why she couldn't learn to be happy again, with them.
A bitter feeling spread through his guts and he realised a little guiltily that it was resentment. Nikato resented Gohama. He resented her for throwing them against a cliff as if they were nothing, he resented her for keeping the truth about being the jinchuriki from them, he resented her for betraying Konoha and abandoning their team, and he even resented her for sleeping with Kakashi-senpai when Hansuke-sensei loved her more than anyone.
The door opened again and he readied himself for another bout of kicks or interrogation while he continued to stare at the blinding white lights of that place, blotches of blue floating in his vision.
The person crouched beside him, a face hovered above him and, even through the blotches, he recognised Hansuke-sensei's face. "I leave you alone for a few minutes…" He whispered with clear light-hearted banter. "What did I say about not provoking them?"
"They…" He winced as the muscles of his face moved while he tried to talk. "called Gohama a whore… I'm going to beat them up." Even if Nikato resented Gohama, he would never let anyone get away with saying those false demeaning things about her.
"Oh no, you're definitely not." Sensei carefully pulled Nikato's arm across his shoulders. "Come, let's see what Kisamaru can do about that trampled face."
They walked down another pristine white corridor, until Hansuke-sensei opened one of the doors without reserve. Inside the room was Kisamaru sitting on a chair, his face closed off and gaze blank, with two other ANBU operatives standing around him.
"Kisamaru, let's go." Sensei commanded, but he didn't stand up, and instead looked up at the ANBU for permission. "I said let's go." His tone the sterner he had ever used on Kisamaru and he obeyed, his movements almost robotic, as they had been for the past month.
When the door was closed behind them and the corridor empty, Hansuke-sensei added gravely. "Kakashi is awake."
He knew that soothing overwhelming wave that for a moment silenced the piercing pulse in his head. That was the only thing his mind could capture, the dark blue wave lapping at his head, soothing the burning stab. Maybe it was more like light, or fire, and not the sea, even if it felt as if he was drowning, the blackness at the bottom pushing over the deep blue, so familiar, so terrifying. He wanted to call for her, for the fire and the sea perhaps, but the cold spread through him, the darkness seemed to wash out everything and he felt like smoke. The sea blue fire vanished in a fast swish, he hit the bottom, and here there was nothing.
Kakashi was pulled back with a small gasp and a mind like fog. Again the pulsing stab returned, unyielding and unrelenting, and he could clearly feel it spread from the sharingan. For a moment, that could have stretched from a minute to hours, he knew only of the pain and could only know of the pain as his mind tried to piece itself together and him into the world.
What he felt first was of course the horrific smell of disinfectant. It had a particular talent of forcing him into alertness, not because he needed to be alert, but because he needed to escape. The hospital. He fucking hated the hospital. He could already feel his sore muscles tensing and bunching as if he were in danger, the sign of all the awful memories of dying teammates on the other side of a closed door as Kakashi waited, his heart both hopeful and helpless.
Had he been on a mission? Had he abused his sharingan once more? Where there any teammates who had not made it as he had?
Gohama's dark hair splayed over his white pillow as she looked at him through half-lidded dark green eyes. Gohama hovering above him, her cold fingers tight around his jaw and her eyes as sharp as the blade she had pressed to his throat.
Those two images flashing behind his lids were enough to spur a turmoil of motions in his chest and the heavy fast pound of his heart. But now was not the time for that. Kakashi was in a hospital, probably in Konoha and Gohama was not there. With a deep inhale he caught only the scent of disinfectant and another distinctive smells, none of them Gohama's.
Kakashi finally snapped his eye open, intent in leaving that hospital room and discover things for himself. Instead of the typical ceiling and warm light from the sun, he found only a sterile stone white and piercing fluorescent lights that made the pounding in his head swell. A quick perusal of the room made him sigh tiredly as he sank back on the bed.
It was one of the ANBU hideouts, and if he had to guess probably the one in Snow. Kakashi loathed the white sterile underground monstrosities that were the ANBU hideouts. There was something disconcerting about being several metres underground in a bunker painted in shrill white and illuminated in shrill light. Especially because he couldn't simply jump out the window and flee into his own apartment, his own bed with the shuriken print he enjoyed so much and his collection of books to keep him entertained.
Kakashi moved his hand first and the soreness jolted up his arm. It would make it more difficult to stealth through the compound, but he was still confident enough he could find out what was going on and where Gohama was before getting caught. With a rumbling grunt, he pushed the covers away from his body and threw his leg onto the side of the bed.
Then he heard a noise outside and felt chakra signatures, familiar ones, and the thud of a closing door. Biting out a groan, he pulled himself back into place, eyes closed and face placid, forcing his heartbeat to settle down after the effort of moving.
The door to his room opened and Hansuke entered, followed by Gohama's teammates. Kakashi was confident he could pass as dead to the world, considering his constant training around nurses and medics.
"I know you're awake, Kakashi."
Not a single muscle twisted in his face. He felt Hansuke approach him and suddenly a stab of pain shot through his stomach, as his hand pressed down on a wound. Hansuke's uncharacteristic ruthlessness had caught him completely off guard and he couldn't control the grunt of pain and upwards jerk. Kakashi opened his grey eye and let it cut through Hansuke's unamused expression. He didn't back off, his hand still hovering above the stab wound Itachi had nicely dealt into him.
Kakashi sank back into the bed, surrendering as he had little energy to play any games. "Where is she?"
"We thought you might enlighten us on that."
A wave of relief washed over him. Gohama had not been arrested by Konoha. Kakashi was in an ANBU hideout and she in an unknown location, which meant hunter-nin would have already been sent after her. Still it was better to know she hadn't been caught yet.
"Tell us what happened."
Kakashi let his eye roam through the three men that had certainly brought him there. Hansuke had retreated, leaning against the door of the room, the Hyuga was all sternness as he stood, stiff and stony, at the corner, Nikato sat on a chair, his face a battered mess. Had they fought someone on their way to the hideout?
Kakashi's finger pointed to his own cheek, while his careless gaze settled on Nikato's. "You have a thing on your face."
His expression twisted but Kakashi couldn't understand what it showed, quickly overtaken by a wince of pain.
"ANBU interrogated us, they'll do you next." Hansuke explained with a harsh unyielding tone. Kakashi felt as if he was an academy kid being scolded by his sensei and it did not sit well with him.
"No one is going to do me, least of all ANBU."
"Except for Gohama of course." Nikato mumbled bitterly, scowling down at the floor through a swollen eye.
Kakashi kept his expression blank as his gaze shifted to Hansuke, a prickle of trepidation cool in his stomach. Hansuke didn't let anything show through his face, except for the cutting stare, but that had been pinned to Kakashi since the moment he had entered the room.
"Tsunade-sama will and you know how rough she can get, especially when you've gone dark for more than a month."
Hansuke's gaze shifted to Hyuga, who straightened his neck impossibly more, his eyes not meeting Kakashi's own, even when he directed his words to him.
"You suffered mild brain damage from overuse of the sharingan. The eye is inflamed, but there should not be any lingering injury to it. The worst of your conditions was chakra exhaustion. Luckily, there were traces of tailed-beast chakra in your eye's pathways, which kept the sharingan from absorbing your own chakra. There were three-day old wounds, with Kyura Gohama's signature healing on them, a stab wound to the lower abdominal area, another a fissure to the fifth left rib. Finally, there were also small abrasions on your shoul—"
"That's enough, Kisamaru. Thank you. Tell us what happened, since the beginning."
Hansuke was seriously going to interrogate him right after he woke up, while he was in serious pain, the sharingan constantly stabbing into his skull and making it very hard to think. Kakashi still hadn't had the time to ponder over what had happened, to order the chaos of pieces in their rightful place until he could make sense of them.
"Maa, that's a long story. It all started twelve years ago. I had just returned from—"
"For fuck's sake, Kakashi! This is fucking serious! Gohama is being hunted down by ANBU, my teammate is being used as a punching bag by ANBU, Tsunade is detaining us here, and you're taking it as a fucking joke. ANBU assumes Gohama attempted to kill you and, since you're a major asset to the village, the Hokage is taking it as a personal attack, not to talk about the fact that Gohama is a fucking ticking bomb now that she knows about Konoha's involvement in Buki's massacre and is officially the lost jubi jinchuriki. The Council probably wants her head above even Akatsuki's and Danzo no longer has to placate his interest in her.
"Gohama has Akatsuki, missing-nin, Konoha and maybe Root after her, not to talk about possible other villages interested in the ten-tails. So get your head out of your fucking ass and tell was what the fuck happened!"
Kakashi glared at him and for the first time Hansuke seemed to remember the hierarchy there had once been between them and still existed in fainter looser lines. His expression eased from demand into begging, the white light of the room making his skin ghostly pale and the black circles around his eyes pop. He looked so old, so weary under them and it wasn't hard for Kakashi to see that all that anger and insolence were nothing but the expression of the fear behind his eyes.
Kakashi deflated again, his eyes shifting to look at the ceiling and not that cavernous face. Kakashi wouldn't share all the details of the last days, those were meant only for him and Gohama, but he could at least pacify them with some information and the illusion of it leading to a solution.
"I went after Gohama to get the Jinchuriki Scrolls Kyura Tsukate left in my possession after his death. We fought, I got them and she asked me to stay with the scrolls. I did, I helped her train. Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame came after her and we fought, the old wounds were dealt by Itachi, not Gohama. Kisame is dead and Itachi fled. Once Gohama finished her jinchuriki training she left Buki."
"Why did you accept to stay? What was your plan?"
Hansuke frowned as he tried to fit the pieces together for a solution. Kakashi's eyes lowered to where his hands rested above his lap, nails scraping the linen threads.
"Come on, Copy-nin, everyone knows you always have a plan, spit it out."
"I didn't have one."
His answer silenced Hansuke and Kakashi lifted his gaze in time to see his surprise followed with a mellowed expression that made Kakashi feel as if he were naked. He didn't like the turn of the interrogation, he had not felt in control since the beginning, but the scale was shifting rapidly to a worrying level of unstable.
"Did Gohama try to kill you?"
"Define try."
"Kakashi, please!"
"She tried in the sense that she had a tanto to my throat."
"So Gohama threatened you?"
"I wouldn't call it threatening."
"You're not making any sense."
"Gohama couldn't bring herself to do it. It wasn't premeditated, it just… something must have triggered her. If she wanted me dead, I would have been dead."
"Why did you use the sharingan, then?"
That was decisively the information he didn't want anyone but them to know. It wouldn't help Gohama's team in any way, since there was nothing they could do to bring her back, and it would expose vulnerabilities that were not Kakashi's to expose.
"She was in a troubled emotional state and I thought I could calm her with it. After a few attempts she broke out and I guess my body couldn't take it. It's not anything new, the sharingan always takes too much out of my chakra reserves."
"There was residue of Seiryu's chakra in the eye. Do you know why?"
"Gohama used it to accelerate healing in my stab wound. I don't know why I had it in my eye."
Silence settled between them and Kakashi allowed his head to fall back on the pillow and eyes to close. His fingers pressed to his temples, gently rubbing the headache out of him. It wouldn't work, seeing as it was the sharingan and chakra exhaustion that caused it, but it did soothe somewhat. He needed his mind sharp so, once alone, he could think.
"This is good, Hansuke-sensei, isn't it? Maybe there's a chance she can be accepted back in Konoha if Kakashi-senpai explains things to Tsunade-sama." It was Nikato that asked it.
"And why would Gohama go back to Konoha?" Hyuga replied, voice firm.
"Because it's where we are, her team, her friends. It's where she belongs."
"You wanting to bring Gohama back is the most selfish thing I've ever seen."
Kakashi's attention snapped to Hyuga's unyielding gaze as he looked at his teammate with those translucent piercing eyes. He had stayed silent for the entire interrogation, except when ordered to spill the medical jargon, his expression closed off and stern, as he stood against the wall, spine straight and head raised.
"How is it selfish? I just want Gohama to come back and for things to be back to how they were. She was good with us in Konoha, it was good for her."
"Are you even hearing yourself, Nikato? Konoha betrayed her in what matters the most to her, Bukigakure and the massacre. Even Hansuke, when he was always the one she trusted the most. How can you even expect things to go back to what they were before? How can you even expect Gohama to go back to a village that conspired to the massacre, the slaying of everyone she cared about?"
"What does it matter if her life is better in Konoha? Why can't she get over her obsession? Why can't she grow up? It's not like she's the only one that has ever lost someone. We're shinobi. Everyone loses people, everyone has been through grief and death. The massacre was horrifying and traumatising, but in Konoha Gohama has us, in Konoha she can find another home. Why would she not want to come back?"
"You never understood her, did you, Nikato?" Hyuga hissed with a bitter cruel edge to his tone. "When Gohama talks of duty, it isn't in the same way you talk of duty, Nikato. For her it is an unbreakable bond, a bond she has been tied to since the moment she was born."
Hyuga's fingers grabbed his hitai-ate and he tugged it off his head. The cursed seal of the Hyuga branch families was marked in bright sharp green against his pale skin. Seeing the shocked expressions of his teammates, Kakashi understood that the uncovering was definitely not common.
"She may not have a cursed seal on her forehead forcing her to do things, but she has a jinchuriki seal on her forearm that always sealed her fate. You don't understand what is like to, from the moment you are born, have a seal dictate the life you are going to live!
"Before she was born, her person was meant to be this great weapon. Since before she was even a thought in her own parents' hearts, she was already supposed to be this great weapon. Gohama was bred and raised for that and only that.
"This isn't normal expectation, like having good grades, being a good child and doing good on missions, this is having the weight of generations, of a clan, of the future, of every single person in your village telling you that you are supposed to be this great weapon, you are supposed to protect everyone. All that shoved on a child that can't even write their own fucking name!
"When her Village was destroyed and Gohama survived, she took it as her failure, she took it as her fault, a nine year old child! Because everyone always told her she was the great weapon that was meant to prevent all that!"
Nikato raised himself, the movement making the chair scrape against the floor. "So you're justifying it?! You're justifying the fact that she wanted to kill Kakashi-senpai, the fact that she stole our chakra and threw us against a cliff as if we meant nothing to her, had never meant anything to her!"
While Hyuga's voice and movements were more contained yet no less harsh, Nikato expressed every spark of his emotions through shouts and wide gestures.
"I'm not justifying anything. I'm saying this does not surprise me, I'm saying Gohama is not going to stop. And while you and Hansuke pretended love and friendship could conquer everything, could fix everything, Gohama had always made sure we all knew who came first in her life, had always made sure we all knew who she really was. There wasn't anything we could have done to stop this.
"She is not coming back and should not come back. Things can never go back to what they were. This is not something she can move on from. Gohama will never move on from it. As with any cursed seal only death brings freedom."
Hyuga finished his speech with a harsh stare that withered as the vibrations of his voice rang through their ears, not seizing, not fading, not when the last words had held such a frightful grim force to them. Hyuga wavered in his straight stern stance and took a step back into the corner, retreating to the same cold mask of before.
"You're giving up on her." Hansuke said, simple and resigned.
Hyuga's clear eyes widened slightly, in hurt maybe, outrage, and he snapped to the side, the starkness of before igniting again.
"Gohama was always right, you are a fool. While you tried to make her happy, you completely failed to see what makes her unhappy. All you tried to do was mask away the gaping wound that is Gohama.
"You did the same as her Village, you showed her this version of herself and said 'Be this and then everything will be alright.' or 'Be this because this is who I want you to be, who I think you should be'. You gave up on her the moment you put your idealised Gohama before the real one."
Hansuke lunged towards him, his hands fisting in Hyuga's shirt, and he shoved him back against the wall. Nikato jumped in a startle, but didn't approach them, and Kakashi continued to watch, stuck between feeling uncomfortable and snooping over the team's way of handling of the situation.
Hyuga's startled eyes sharpened, as they defied Hansuke, silently taunting him to hit him, to punish him for the things he had accused him of. All Hansuke did was push himself away and burst out of the room.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Nikato hissed, but Hyuga didn't turn his eyes from the opened door and didn't spare a glance to any of them before also leaving.
Hansuke barged through one of the infirmary rooms, the door hitting the wall with a loud thud. He didn't even think before kicking the metal chair and grabbing the metal bar of the bedframe and throwing it onto the other side of the room. His fingers ripped through the mattress as he pulled it away from the bed. Then, he grasped the aid cart but he caught himself before could throw it and ruin important medical supplies. His fingers soaked in chakra still dented the metal as he breathed with heavy almost growled shoves of air.
He felt like screaming, like tearing these explosive emotions from his chest in a ripping shout. He felt like letting his chakra free and crumbling everything around him. Instead he forced more breaths down his throat, longer ones, even if now less growled. Once the rage washed away there was only that helpless anguish and Hansuke deflated himself, his tense muscles streghtless under his skin, his fingers sliding down the bent around the metal.
With trembling legs, he pushed himself away, swaying under the weight that had never left him for that entire month and yet felt impossibly heavier now. His back hit the wall and he slid down, face pressing to his knees and hands pulling at his hair.
The tears fell then, familiar and salty on his cheeks. He hadn't stopped crying for the first weeks Gohama had pushed him away and he had returned to Konoha. It usually helped numb him into a quiet emptiness where he just stared at nothing. Still, it was no less painful, just quieter.
This time, the sobs wouldn't seize as they racked his shoulders and clamped inside his throat. Hansuke hadn't expected this out of their detour through Buki. He had not expected to find the Hatake Kakashi passed out and ghostly, he hadn't expected to find that he had fucked Gohama, he had expected to find her gone and far, far away from him, so far he thought he would never get her back.
It was helpless now. She had fucked it up. How would Konoha ever accept her back when she had tried to kill the Hatake Kakashi? Did she even want to come back to him?
What if he defected? What if he went after her? Gohama didn't need to return to Konoha for them to be together, he could be the one to leave and follow her.
His eyes widened and his arms wrapped almost painfully around his shoulders.
Fuck, he was crazy, he was completely crazy. Hansuke was thinking of defecting Konoha, his own village, the village he had sworn to protect and fight for, the village he had already sacrificed so much for… His fingers wrapped around the fabric at his back and tugged the shirt away from his body.
There on his forearm, the ANBU tattoo and the scar that cut right through it, ragged and deep and poorly healed. Gohama used to trace it with her soft fingers, her eyes silently wondering over the despair marked there. She had asked after it, but he never answered. Of course, he didn't answer, answering meant explaining how partaking in the massacre of her village had fucked him over, it meant explaining how he had collaborated in the most horrific and destructive moment of her life.
They were was stuck behind his eyes, the weeklong images of thousands of bodies being buried, of his fingers stained with red powder, of his taicho's back as he stood in front of the memorial, on the first line of graves, where the Yukikage and his family were buried. And Hansuke had drawn strength from that back when not even Yugao's fingers intertwined with his held any weight to pull him back from where he had felt himself falling.
He hadn't known the girl's name carved into the stone before Kakashi would later be carved in his own heart as well.
When they had returned to Konoha, Hansuke had closed himself in his apartment, the hole never ending and the burden of guilt and anguish turning his insides into a battleground. He had had endless nightmares, feverish dreams of all his missions, and had grabbed his ninjato, using the blade to cut down his ANBU tattoo. Whatever freedom had come from it exploded into fear.
Hansuke had found himself in Kakashi's apartment, kneeling by his couch, his forehead pressed to his thigh, trying to draw a flake of steadiness in the feel of him, real and touchable. Kakashi didn't like when people touched him, but hadn't minded then, he hadn't said anything as he sat on his couch and let his ANBU subordinate cry his eyes out against his knees, like a child, the gauze wrapped on Hansuke's bicep soaking with blood and staining his couch.
Kakashi had been the one to stitch Hansuke's self-made cut and had guided him when it came to resigning from ANBU. He had been the only one in their squad not to glare at him with disgust and contempt, not to throw painful jabs into his already cut out heart.
Even Yugao had stood at the corner of the room, eyes down, pinned to the floor, and not once rising to meet his. Hansuke's heart had broken into tiny cutting shards then.
And, for the following year, where Hansuke had kept himself to D and C-rank missions, Kakashi would sometimes proposedly cross his path on the Hokage Tower or the streets of Konoha and offer him one of his careless waves and eye-crinkled smiles. Even when Hansuke was no longer his squad member, Kakashi had still looked out for him.
Who would have fucking thought that the mission would come back to destroy everything he cared about again? Hansuke had tried to move passed it, had tried to heal himself from the horrifying years of ANBU, and he had succeeded, he had thrived outside all of it.
Now everything was crumbling around him again, and he was crumbling with it. The woman he was in love with, the two people he loved as if they were his own brothers, his precious beloved team… his life, the life he had fought for… the future he had fought for… everything was crumbling and there was nothing he could do to hold it together.
Hansuke didn't know how to deal with this. He didn't know how to deal with the terror of Gohama out there, alone and in danger. He especially didn't know how to deal with the corrosive bitterness gnawing at his chest, intrusive and dirty.
Fuck. Gohama's life was at risk and he was fucking jealous. His mind still hadn't stopped picturing the image of Gohama's nails biting Kakashi's shoulders, of his hands on her, his mouth, and her sounds, her movements, all of her… It taunted him and his rage, made him filled with hate and no one to hate, because he could never hate Gohama, as he could never hate Kakashi.
There was betrayal too and hurt and they hadn't even been together. Hansuke knew Gohama wasn't his and yet his heart was acting as if she were, selfish and possessive, his heart was acting like everything he had never wanted his love for Gohama to be.
His mind continued to hammer him with the same question, why did she choose Kakashi? Why did she choose him? Why did she choose him?
What the fuck had happened between the two of them? How could a month have been enough for Gohama and Kakashi to actually sleep with each other?
After Dazai's mission, he knew Gohama wouldn't use sex as a tool for a goal again, wouldn't even allow herself the vulnerability with someone she didn't fully trust.
And Kakashi had taken off his mask. It was a recurrent teasing matter for the ones that had the guts, which meant mostly Genma and Anko, seeing as Gai wouldn't joke over it, that Kakashi always kept his mask during sex and when he didn't, he blindfolded or used genjutsu on his partners. It was neurotic. And yet he had showed his face, he had let his masks fall with Gohama.
The burning jealousy couldn't erase the empathy rushing through Hansuke. Gohama had really fucked up and still all Kakashi showed was that aloof farce of his with small streaks of sadness, no true resentment or anger.
But it hadn't been a month, had it? They had gotten along since the beginning, with that annoying way of them, with no real show of interest or bond in an attempt of protecting themselves. Dazai's mission had been the catalyst to their fall out with Kakashi deciding to disappear from Gohama's life and she hurting from it. Their last mission had showed how much resentment Gohama held and if there was resentment then there was hurt.
Hansuke leaned his head back and shook it with a dry chuckle. How hadn't he noticed it before? Well, he had, he just hadn't lingered on it, because there had been more searing wounds to focus on.
Kakashi wouldn't have spared the energy and trouble of avoiding Gohama for two years if he hadn't seriously cared about her, in a guilty distorted way. And now, he had actually straightened himself from his stubborn damaged ways. Kakashi had had a plan, not a convoluted one he was usually prone to, his plan had simply been to be there for her for as long as he could.
Fuck, it had to be bad if Hatake Kakashi changed his ways for a person. Hansuke, in the years he had known him, had only seen it happen with his students and even then it had been in true Kakashi fashion – detached, masked and reading porn.
Oh fuck. The impulse to run after Gohama and defect from Konoha fired in his veins again, bitter and burning, and stupidly reckless. He had a tattoo in his arm, proof of the two years of breaking for Konoha, he had a scar cutting through it, proof of how he had crumbled, but Konoha wasn't just ANBU.
Konoha was also his team, Kisamaru, Nikato and Ayame – the sacrifice of her life was enough to swell Konoha of worth. Konoha was all those friends that filled his life with meaning, it wasa crazy nights starting at Ippon and morning with raging hangovers, Konoha was where his parents had chosen to start a new life. It was the civilian children playing around the streets, shinobi children growing and training and ignited with the Will of Fire. Konoha was a home, for him and all of his people, and that was why he had wanted to give his life to protecting it.
Every village had its dark difficult moments and Hansuke couldn't let the anguish crying in his chest settle over his love for Konoha. But Gohama… she needed him more than Konoha now and he also had a duty towards her.
Hadn't his father defected Kumo for his expecting mother? Hansuke knew his father had never regretted that decision, Hansuke knew it was driven by love and duty, and he was glad for it, he was glad he had been raised in Konoha and could call it home. Yet it had been a two edged sword. His father had been killed by Kumo hunter-nin when Hansuke was only four and his mother had never recovered from that loss.
Hansuke still remembered that morning four years ago, when he had convinced her to let him take care of her. His eyes relished in the new intimate image of Gohama sleeping in his bed and Hansuke had realised Gohama was the love of his life and his purpose.
How could he not follow Gohama when she was everything? Had been everything for so long in a searing way that no one and nothing else had been before.
That didn't matter now. Hansuke wouldn't make such a crucial decisive decision when his emotions were still a jumbled chaos crashing all inside of him.
With the shirt bunched in his hands, he wiped away the wetness on his face. He pulled the shirt back over his head and tried to tidy the room. The bars of the bed were slightly bent and the linens torn, but they were still usable. ANBU could pay for the damages as repercussion for insolent operatives that beat up one of Konoha's ninja, one of their own.
Once Hansuke stepped onto the corridor, he found an ashen looking Kisamaru, his skin tone matching the shrill white of the walls and his hitai-ate back in place, covering the cursed seal of the Hyuga.
Kisamaru startled slightly and his gaze moved down as he walked towards Hansuke, who met him halfway on the empty corridor.
"Sensei… I apologise. I was needlessly cruel. My words were spoken out of pain, frustration and fear… For these past years, you have taken care of Gohama more than anyone else has. For that I am grateful."
Hansuke took a step closer and put a strong hand on his shoulder. Kisamaru's head bow turned slumped down even more.
"You don't have to apologise with all that formality, okay, Kisamaru? I'm your friend, not your clan leader."
Hansuke's hand moved for a grasp on the back of his neck, showing that he wanted Kisamaru to raise his eyes to him. He understood, his Hyuga opalescent irises surrounded by barely contained redness.
Hansuke offered him a smile. "And I know I wasn't the only one that took care of Gohama."
His poised perfect expression creased, the corners of his mouth turning down. Kisamaru didn't let him see him cry, his face coming to press onto Hansuke's shoulder, as his back shook. It sent a pang through him and he quickly lifted his arms to hold his back.
The last time he had seen Kisamaru cry was when Ayame died, six years ago.
"I also want her to be happy… I also want her to be okay…" Kisamaru cried wetly against his shoulder, the gut-wrenching despair in his trembling quiet voice reaching right through Hansuke's heart. "And I'm scared… I'm scared she's completely broken… I'm scared she'll die…"
Fuck, Hansuke was completely lost, he had no idea how to even begin to fix this.
Kakashi kept repeating it in his head, each moment of their night he watched as if the inflections of Gohama's face, her grasp on his shoulders, the twitch of her muscles, the flecks of the sweat on her skin, the trembles of her voice held the puzzle to her inner movements.
He had never seen anything more beautiful than when she had lain on the futon, dark hair fanning against the pale skin of her shoulders. Her cheeks flushed, the colour flowing down her skin to her chest, to the two pink peaks of her nipples, and the soft mounds of her breast, the hard edge of her collarbone, the column of her neck. Her green eyes darkened with lust, desire, want, want for him, the colour bottomless, lively, gleaming, not that flat veil from grief, or that quivering wideness from despair. Her beautiful creased expression had bloomed with pleasure and so much emotion, all because of Kakashi, because of how he touched her.
There was a mere second where the image seemed to shatter. In the end, her nails biting into his skin, her head thrown back, eyes clenched shut and mouth opened in the beautiful shape of a long moan. As he came with her, for an instant when he had yet to close his eyes in pleasure, her own had widened, a terrible chaotic blend of emotions and sensations moving through the instant long flicker of her expression.
What had made that sudden dread flash through her face?
Why hadn't Kakashi opened the sharingan again? Why hadn't he noticed her muscles coiled as springs as he curled around her, mind too floating, lips focussed only on the softness of her skin, fingers recognising only the common twitches of her abs?
When he had woken up with a shiver, his hand searching for the warm body he had expected to lay beside him, Kakashi had jerked up, realising Gohama wasn't in the futon. He had felt her chakra immediately, the strong emanating waves soaking around the air, making it tremor and buzz. He had only taken the time to put on some pants before going after her, fear ringing through his ears and pounding in his chest.
There had been something icily beautiful about the image of her looking out the shattered side of the house, hair thrashing in the wind, the cold light of the night sharpening the edges of her face. Kakashi had called for her and she hadn't listened, probably had not even recognised the sound of her own name.
Their night together and his own rose tinted stupidity had made him rest a hand on her shoulder when he had obliviously known, but not acknowledged, that Gohama was lost in psychological episode. In his long life of active duty, Kakashi had seen so many shinobi pass through them, had suffered them himself after the most horrific missions, and for some reason he had not wanted to acknowledge it then. That stupid mistake had put his life in danger and Gohama's own sanity.
Her eyes. They still made his stomach quiver every time he remembered them, the blankness, deathlike, detached, unfeeling. And then scared, loathing, desperate, lost. At least then she had been feeling something.
'I'm nothing. I'm the shuriken.' Those words wouldn't stop ringing in his mind
The thought of Gohama alone, unstable and hurting, with half the shinobi world after her terrified him. Kakashi knew she could take care of herself, but that was when she was stable.
Everything about her supposed attempt had been inefficient, from the stilled blade in his open throat, to her constant eyeing of the sharingan. If she had tried to swipe over his carotid, Kakashi would have been able to put her under a genjutsu before the cut became fatal. The experienced powerful ninja that was Gohama would have known of that. Her mind was so shattered that all the training of a lifetime, engrained into her being, had washed away.
Maybe the mangekyo had helped. Kakashi saw the difference as he looked at her inside the genjutsu, the wild erratic wideness of her eyes had eased and there was mostly annoyance and resolve, even a brief flicker of worry as she warned him that he could blind himself. He had taken it too far, but maybe he had pulled her out for the first step and Gohama could make the rest of the journey back.
Kakashi still could not discern what he was feeling over that last night. Maybe he should feel resentment, regret, anything that would have been a sane reaction to having a blade to his throat, to having the woman he loved saying it was her duty to kill him.
There was only that paralysing fear and deep, piercing sorrow that weighed him down and throbbed through every plane of his soul.
They shouldn't have slept together. It had been crazy of him, when he had kept his control in check during that month, had used their emotional state as an excuse the day before and had let that same excuse completely crumble when it wouldn't have been an excuse anymore but good judgement.
And still, there was a senseless gratitude, despite everything, for having loved her with his touch at least once. Had Gohama felt it? At least for a moment, had she realised he loved her with how he touched her?
There was a knock at the door and Kakashi jerked at it, his sores muscles aching with the movement. He realised then his fingers were bunched around the bedding and forced himself to relax back onto the pillow, masking the tenseness under his skin, and opening Icha Icha.
It was Hansuke. He didn't say anything as he dragged a chair from the corner of the room towards the side of Kakashi's bed. He sat on it, his elbows supported on the bed and head hidden in his hands. Kakashi had seen it either way, the red blotches that were his eyes.
"I don't know how to deal with this…" Hansuke whispered.
"You're so desperate that you come to me for advice."
"This is serious, Kakashi. How did you deal with Uchiha Sasuke's defection?"
"Don't compare Gohama to Sasuke. They're different people."
"I'm not. I'm comparing you with me. And I know we're different too, but still… how did you deal with it?"
"I buried myself in ANBU missions. So yeah, don't follow my path, but you probably already knew this."
Hansuke's head lifted so he could look at him. "And you? How are you dealing with this?"
Kakashi's answer was only to look back.
"Fuck, that's annoying. It helps, you know, to actually express something other than boredom." Hansuke leaned back on the chair and crossed his arms. "Nothing, hmm?" He threw with a nonchalant tone to his voice. "You basically lived together and all alone for a month and Gohama decided to part ways with an attempted homicide and you can't even spare a flash of anger. Even I'm furious."
"No. Gohama wasn't—" Kakashi ground out and Hansuke just watched him with through intent hazel eyes. That was what Hansuke was going for, a try at getting a rise out of him.
With a tired sigh, he slumped back on the bed, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Instead of shutting back out, he continued. "…okay. When I say she was volatile, I mean she was an emotional, psychological wreck and I… I thought she was better, I think she thought she was better. Hyuga is right. Gohama is a gaping wound."
"What really happened, Kakashi?" Instead of the demanding tone of the previous interrogation, Hansuke's voice held only a pleading softness.
"I don't know what happened. I keep repeating it in my head… I don't know what changed… I shouldn't have slept with her… we were both in an emotional state and…"
"I don't really want to hear about that."
Kakashi's head tilted to the side and, for once, he let his eye hold Hansuke's with openness. "I'm sorry, it was a shitty thing to do to you."
"Gohama's not mine. She never was and she always made sure that I knew she wasn't mine. She's Buki's." His mouth turned into a bitter sneer. "I still envy you, though. I waited for her in Buki and she pushed me away. I wish I'd been the one to stay with her."
"It should have been you. Gohama only let me stay because she could never care for me and I would never be in the way of her love for her family and Bukigakure."
Hansuke shook his head, a mocking dry chuckle raising from his throat. "You're an idiot sometimes, Hatake. Gohama has always had a soft spot for you."
"That's not true."
"Come on, Kakashi, where's your genius when it comes to Gohama? She never hides what she feels for people, good, bad, indifferent, never says it but also never hides it. But with you… she always pretended she didn't care about you. Gohama's always been too proud, too protective of herself, too insecure for her own good. She always thought you didn't care and Gohama would never let herself care for someone if she thought they didn't give a shit about that or her."
Kakashi clenched his jaw. He had heard similar words with the same meaning out of her own mouth, but about Hansuke. Gohama had admitted she would never fall in love with him if she knew he wouldn't love her back. Even if she knew Hansuke loved her now, she had still been insecure about it, actually believing that he loved her only for her brokenness, and that if she wasn't broken he wouldn't love her.
His eyes were pinned firmly to his opened book, afraid that if he lifted them Hansuke would see all that he was thinking. It would shatter him to know what Gohama believed of his love for her.
Maybe he already knew. Hansuke knew Gohama and, despite all that Hyuga had said about their relationship, he was good for her. Kakashi was her parents' killer, he was the man she had a duty to kill and he was the man that hadn't had the guts to take the guilt and disappeared for two years. Hansuke had always been there.
It was as Tsukate had said, 'Gohama needed me'. The simplicity of his smile, of his selfless fatherly love… it would forever be engraved in Kakashi's spirit. He hadn't had any pretentions that Gohama needed him, but he had stayed in Buki with her just in case she did.
"Do you think the hunter-nin have already been despatched?" Hansuke asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Probably."
"Fuck…"
"Gohama can survive the hunter-nin."
"And Akatsuki?"
"She can take care of herself."
Kakashi winced at his own words. Why did he always find himself reassuring people over things he could not be sure of? Any other day he wouldn't doubt, but Gohama had said she needed to kill him and none of her movements had been consonant to her words. He could hope and he would hope, because, despite the bleak veil he had over himself, Kakashi always found hope for the ones he cherished. But between hope and reassurance there was a deep sinking hole where it was so easy to fall into.
"We're all transporting to Konoha. Tsunade-sama wants to speak with us as soon as possible." Hansuke let out a long mocking sigh, as he relaxed back on the chair. "More than a month missing… You're as good as dead. Which reminds me, I should see if the boys haven't gotten themselves killed. Nice reading."
Hansuke stood up and dragged the chair back to its rightful place.
"Hansuke."
His ex-kohai turned back, his expression so different from the one of the kid, nervous and proud, who had first entered his ANBU squad after the girl he had been in love with. Yet it was still there, that foolish unconditional devotion, almost sappy, almost blind.
"I shouldn't have commanded you to take the mission. You were just a kid. I knew you wouldn't say no to it, even if you wanted to."
"Kakashi, don't blame yourself like you always do. We had no idea we wouldn't be the only ones. In paper, it was just one more assassination mission. You were a good taicho. And you're a good friend."
Hansuke finished with one of his kind simple smiles and a nod before twisting the doorknob and exiting the room. But the door never clicked closed, his head picked inside the room again, a wide boyish and mocking grin on his face.
"We all saw your face, by the way. Of course Hatake Kakashi had to be fucking gorgeous and I say this as a straight guy."
Kakashi offered him one of his eye-creased smiles. "Glad you made that last part clear, otherwise I'd think you were trying to get into my pants."
"Fuck off, old man."
Before Hansuke could leave again, Kakashi added seriously. "The only advice that I can think of is that you don't let your team fall apart like I did. And train. Seriously train. Akatsuki has been given free reign for too long. This won't go out without a war."
"Hai, Taicho."