Title: House of Leaves

Rating: PG-R

Warnings: Right up to and though chapter 244, except not, as all shall see.

Summary: The mission to retrieve Sasuke goes horribly, horribly right.


Part 1: a Semblance of Steel


Chapter 1: Bitter, Like Salt


Well now, we are in a pickle aren't we boy?

Idiot; should never have left this to you. Should have taken over, should have eaten you, then we wouldn't be in this mess now, would we?

But oh wait; let me think—it was that yellow fucker who trapped you and me. Made it so I'm in here and you're …safe. Ha! Safe my tail. You should blame him if anyone.

Stupid kid. Still way to soft. You held back. If you'd just killed that crazy-eyed fuck then you wouldn't be talking with me now. Doesn't that just gall the hell out of you?

Yeah, yeah.

I'll take care of this.


Kakashi goes to retrieve his boys, because—in a way—it is his fault.

(And besides; no one else will do. He's already failed them in so many other ways; the dark boy, and the fair. He is damned if he'll let him die this time. This time, he can stop it.)

So he is sent, armed to the teeth and confident, because he is the Copy Ninja; legendary in his own day. His Hokage, his village, his one remaining gennin, they send him off with a plea and a prayer (even though he just got back and Tsunade is telling him that he has another mission already lined up—"I'll do it when I get back," he tells placidly her, though really anything but placid—and no one actually knows he's back yet). Off he goes, and nearly to his death, though none of them knew it at the time.

Because he is who he is, he survives. Barely, and by the skin of his teeth, but he survives though not without some help. He manages to drag both boys (one ripped in half with his guts sliding red through his fingers and make-shift staples, the other weeping blood from a slice right between his second and third ribs, and unconscious, thankfully) and his own damaged frame back to the steps of the Hokage's offices before collapsing.

He sleeps.


He is told when he was born he opened his eyes and stared at his mother, and the hospital room, and the doctors, for a full minute before blinking and, having determined that there was nothing important to hold his interest, shut them again (the doctors tell his mother that it is a possible sign of brain-damage; he is premature after all. His mother tells the doctors that it is simply a sign of genius).

"—temperature is normal, BP steady; no signs of concussion."

"Good; and his head? It looked like Sasuke had tried to claw—"

Years later—

"Mother," he asks; he is five and very precocious. "Will I be strong?"

Mother's hair is rich, and dark. He fists it, sticky fingered, pressing it against sticky lips. Mother's eyes are the forest—deep and riddled with secrets. He can count the stars tangled up in the shadows of her eyes; he has only reached one thousand so far. Mother's skin is cool white snow; never quite warm enough but always burning, never quite pure but always spotless. He presses wet kisses on her wrist, her chin.

"Kakashi," she says in her softsweet voice. He pulls it around him like a cloak; this is his shield against the older Gennin and their taunts and against the older Chuunin and their fists. This is the iron rod that holds up his back for him when he cannot stand. "Oh Kakashi; you will be the strongest."

He remembers this when he is old, older. He remembers this standing over the broken White Fang. He remembers this when he is surging through mist and bodies and blood; remembers his mother's hair, and her eyes, and her voice, and he remembers being told that he will be the strongest there ever was/ever will be/ever is.

"—forgive him. I don't know if I can; Naruto is, Sasuke—"

"It's wasn't his fault, you understand, and anyway you gotta—"

When he wakes up in the hospital, much like his first appearance there, battered and half-blind he feels foreignfamilar blood surging. He feels the diagonal scar on his left eye burning like acid, like healing, and he feels something resting on the tip of his tongue—what it is he doesn't speak. He looks around the hospital room, at the people (not the ones he wants to see) and the things (not his own) and the beds (not his room), and—finding nothing of interest to him—he closes his eye again. Sleep reclaims him with warm hands.


"Oy!"

Kakashi's head snaps up, searching for the source of the shout. There is a thump and a crash, and a dark-haired figure tumbles down the steep knoll to land at his feet. In the warm summer sun Kakashi stares aghast for a moment, before breaking into a lazy grin.

"Huh, Obito-kun, surely you've heard that haste makes waste?" His face crinkles in mirth. He is a cheerful boy, and humor is a commonly seen feature on him. "Or in your case, haste makes a twisted ankle?"

(Wrong, wrong; there is something wrong with this that he just can't figure out—)

The other boy rights himself quickly, a faint embarrassed flush lining his cheeks. He tries to look nonchalant and fails miserably. However, ego is not one of his sins so—after discretely making sure that he hasn't actually sprained a bone—he shrugs it off and plops down besides his teammate.

"Yondaime is looking for you," he yawns carelessly. "Rin, too." Kakashi raises a brow and runs a hand though his pale hair. He wouldn't call it preening, exactly, but there is certainly a feeling of pride for being the youngest chuunin of his generation, and for being a student of the Fourth Hokage. The dark-haired youth snorts and mimes a punch at his shoulder. Obito became a chuunin several years after Kakashi already was one. It has been a great source of teasing for Kakashi, though the other lad has yet risen to the bait.

"Do you know why he wants me?"

Obito shrugs. "Dunno. Something to do with the fact that you missed the briefing." There is a pregnant pause; "Again." (Except something about this is not right because he is never late, at least, not like Obito—hey, yeah, he thinks, Obito is the one that's always late, always making up excuses so why—?)

"Shit," Kakashi flops onto the grass disgustedly. The dark-haired boy pinches his bicep.

"Language," is the lazy rebuke.

"Ouch," the pale haired youth mutters without much force. "Bastard."

"So … I suppose you should get going."

"Guess so."

Above his head is the sound of a hundred thousand birds. Then—

The world explodes.

Fire blooms in his vision and everything around drowns in shades of red. He thinks that he might be running, but he doesn't know for sure; all around him is roaring and keening and rushing. He might be holding somebody, something, but he doesn't know. He might be screaming, his throat hurts, but he isn't sure.

Getoutgetoutgetout!

He can't see. He can't see. Oh god—he can't see, and there is blood in his mouth and on his neck and in his hair—

His shoulder slams into something hard; a wall, a chest, a falling beam, and even over the roaring he can hear the joint popping out of place. Something (someone?) is knocked from his grasp and the sharp point of an elbow is thrust into his gut. Bile rises to the back of his throat and for the first time in his life he thinks that he is going to die.

Oh Kakashi; you will be the strongest.

He kicks out blindly and it connects. A crash, a cry; he tears at his left hand with his teeth. Blood flows freely—this he can feel as it rushes molten hot down his arm through his fingers and oh fuck oh fuck he thinks he might pass out—and his fingers slipslide for the summoning scroll in his pouch.

—whatthefuckareyoudoingdon'tjuststandtheregetupgetupyoustupid—

His searching hand finds the scroll (thankgodthankgodthankgod) and he uses his teeth and his tongue and his fingers and he—

Wakes up.


When Kakashi arrives it is already too late.

Here is the scene; the boys are wasted on the ground, one more than the other. He doesn't notice the blood at first because of the angle. The body is eagle-spread, twisted as if in the process of getting up, the wounds all angled down. The blood spreads slowly, soaked up by the soil and Naruto's own clothes. Kakashi doesn't see it at first because he's looking at the Uchiha heir—his first priority, his protégé. He doesn't see the death because he's looking for the face he failed to save way-back-when, and he's looking in the wrong place. He has always had a talent of being just that little bit too late, in everything. Yondaime told him that it would be his downfall (except not because Yondaime was never so callous).

Sasuke is not unconscious, but something close. He is still, pale, and Kakashi thinks he might be in shock. However, he is still alive. There isn't much for him to do so he just stands silently for a moment, concentrating on breathing.

In. Out. One. Two. There now, see? Not so hard is it?

He should have seen this coming. He should never have left them alone; with his eye, he should have been able to stop this.

Kakashi forcefully holds back the bile edging up his throat, welling behind his teeth thick with the metallic taste of blood, hydrochloric acid, and other compounds that he can't remember the names for. Briskly, because if there is another way to pick up a dead body he doesn't know it, Kakashi slides a blade, a senbon, between numb fingers and attempts to jury-rig Naruto's body back together.

Though he has certainly seen worse, he is momentarily staggered by an image of the boy's body flying apart under his hands, guts and muscles and organs slickly twisting ruby and away as they fall from the maw of the wound.

Once certain things will hold in place while he transports the kyuubi scion, he turns to the prodigal son of Leaf collapsed inward to some personal hell, sprawled dumbly upon hard red-stained rock. It is only then that he wonders what had happened to the rest of the gennins sent to recover the dark-haired lad. He must make some kind of noise because his remaining student transforms; reanimates himself like a re-raised corpse in the span of a blink.

"I am not my brother," Sasuke snarls, bolting upright, scarlet-flecked spittle, eyes wide, rolling; flashing whites liberally. "I'm not. I'm not. Not."

Pity and resentment, revulsion and contempt, war inside Kakashi's lean frame—he wonders, rather detachedly, if he should be more concerned on how stable he is feeling with all the horror of the moment. But rather than pursue that train, he focuses on the other feeling and the other thought that wells up along side it.

Poor boy, he thinks staring down at Sasuke's rabid, raving form. He's lost his mind.


Tsunade oversees the arrangement for the funeral personally. She feels that it's the least she can do because Iruka (as completely undone as any parent would be) is in no condition to deal with it. And besides; she has done it before, so she's an old hand at it.

Which is why, she thinks furiously, her hands should stop fucking trembling. Now. Because, really, she is the Fifth Hokage and a Sannin, and she has done this before.

Hiding her hands, she calls Shizune to her, quietly requesting a new pot of tea and a new flask of sake. Her aide acquiesces with a bow and a worried look Tsunade doesn't dare meet.

She thinks, maybe, this is the price for power. This is the exchange; strength and position at the cost of a life, and always, always his life. Her throat is hot and tight, her eyes itch. It's silly, she knows, and she scolds herself sternly. It is not fitting for a shinobi to cry, no matter how desperately the situation might warrant it.

"Has Hatake woken up since I left?" She asks gruffly instead, focusing on something outside herself for balance, once her student returns with the requested drinks. Shizune shakes her head, a troubled frown pinching her face.

"No. He's still out. Most of his injuries are fixed up, but his face, his eye." Her aide crosses her arms across her stomach and looks a little ill. "I still have trouble believing that his own student would do something like that to him, would try something like that …" She trails off uncomfortably, remembering Orochimaru and the Third and, and—Tsunade can see the chagrin tingeing her student's pale countenance.

The blonde Sannin smiles thinly. "People can always surprise you, if you let them."


The sound of papers being moved is what wakes him from his long dream.

He is drugged; he can feel narcotics gliding sluggishly through his veins, gentle poison slowing both reaction and thought. This is the first thing he thinks. He concentrates on the feel of the needle in his hand, itchy like a bee-sting, and makes his eye focus on the IV embedded in his flesh. He follows clear tubing up to a morphine-drip, a silent silver sentinel at his side. The next thing that he becomes aware of is the throbbing in his cheek. Incessant, it pulls the skin on his face tight, makes him think of drumskins pulled taunt and thrumming.

He discovers that his lips are painfully dry; he tries to lick them but that hurts too. He makes a small noise.

"Ah—you're awake! Sorry, sorry; here, water—" Damp-palmed hands slide behind him, raising him upright a little, and glass is pressed to his mouth. He slurps noisily, water sloshing down his chin, as he greedily sucks at the cup. He makes a croak of protest when the glass is removed and he replaced on his back.

"Now, now; take it easy." He can't turn his head very well, but he manages to make out a hand and an arm, navy-blue, and part of a flak vest. Jounin, he thinks, trying to marshal his thoughts. Asuma? He wants to ask (even though he knows it's highly improbable because there isn't the heavy scent of cloves—from those horrid cigarettes the other Jounin smokes—and besides, the man has his own team to look out for so …), but his voice doesn't seem to be working too well.

The person, maybe sensing this might be a problem, shifts himself into his line of sight and smiles faintly. "Well Kakashi, now that you're back amongst the living, Tsunade will be happier," Shiranui Genma cocks his head to the side. "Some people where starting to get a little worried."

He licks his lips again, and attempts to speak; becomes frustrated when he can't manage more than a wheeze.

Genma nods sagely, knowing what it is he wants as it is something that he himself would probably ask in such a position. "You've been cataleptic for, oh I don't know, three days now." The long-haired man holds up a sheaf of papers, crinkled and coffee-stained. "I've been taking care of your paperwork and your student for you. Be damned grateful Hatake."

Genma sighs and leans on a fist, senbon tucked carefully to one side of his expressive mouth. "The Hidden Sand helped you back. You were in pretty rough shape. Sasuke crushed your voice-box." He grins grimly. "The Hokage, she fixed you up, but says you might have trouble talking for a bit."

Oh.

Somehow, he feels that this isn't all; that he is missing something, but he can't for the life of him put a finger on what. Then, alarm-bells sounding in the back his skull, he thinks: Sasuke did this to me? Then; student? Singular?

Oh, no.

"S-s-stu—student?" His voice is gravel and glass, but he manages to force the word out. Genma looks faintly impressed. However, the surprise passes into something darker, something older, quickly.

"Yeah. Sasuke has been retained; he's under guard right now. Everything has been stripped from him for the moment—Rank, title, status. Your girl is taking it hard, not that I blame her."

He's missing something. He's missing someone. Tow-haired, blue-eyed; laughing, fighting—why is he not mentioned?

"Na-n-Naruto?" He croaks. He asks even though he already knows the response, and each attempt is like swallowing fire. At least the words are coming now, something he's grateful for it.

Genma looks a little startled. There is pity in his eyes that Kakashi doesn't want to recognize. "Uzumaki was buried yesterday."


"Please let me see him, please," Sakura begs, pressing tightly clasped hands to her chest. She looks a wreck and she knows it; eyes red and puffy, skin blotchy, and just feeling miserably streaky overall. She has left the hospital only when her father, concerned for her wellbeing, comes to get her in the evening and yesterday for Naruto's burial. Every day, before and since, she goes to the ANBU stationed sporadically around the building begging to see him just for a minute.

The answer is always the same, always no; it's too dangerous.

She wants to disagree. She wants to say that they're wrong and that this is a mistake and that Sasuke would never hurt her (just like she thought he would never really hurt Naruto, because they were friends, even though they fought. And if they weren't friends—which she knows, knew, at least hoped, they were—than they were at least teammates for god's sake), she wants to say that it was the seal making him do these things. Except …

Sasuke is a strong person. She has always known this. During the Chuunin exams, in the forest, he had controlled the seal. She knows that if he hadn't wanted to, he wouldn't have hurt anyone. Which means that he did what he did because— because—

He wanted to.

Sick to her stomach she tries anyway, unwilling to lose this last little bit of her team. "Please, please; just let me see him so—" (So I know he's alive. So he can tell me he didn't really mean it. So he can apologize.) "—so, so; I don't want to lose him too."

The last comes out in a bit of a wail, but the ANBU is unaffected.

"No."

About now, Inner Sakura is raging. She wants to kick the door in. She wants to rant and rave, and weep, and scream. She, for once in complete accordance with Sakura herself, wants answers.

Answers that only one dark-haired boy can give her.

She presses her hands against painfully dry eyes, and hears a sigh. "Look," the ANBU murmurs, shaking his head a little. "No one can see the Uchiha right now except for the Hokage. Technically, he's no longer your teammate; I'd say stop thinking about him, but I doubt you would." She can hear exasperation in his voice. He adds as an afterthought; "I'm sorry."

Eyes smarting from tears she doesn't think she can hold back anymore, Sakura nods wordlessly and hurries away, looking for someplace quiet and secluded to have her cry.


Shizune pulls her sweat-damp hair back from her face and knots it at the back of her head with a senbon. She feels like she has just run a marathon; tired and satisfied. The Hyuuga boy will live—she has mended the hole in his heart with thin silver and he will live.

(Unlike the other boy, the silly, cheerful, stubborn one that she had liked so much.)

On autopilot she paces towards the room of another injured shinobi from the tragically successful retrieval mission and it's only when she's halfway through the door that she figures out which one. Hatake Kakashi; in her mind's eye she runs though his chart. Crushed windpipe and larynx and trouble breathing; lacerations to face and neck (heavier to the face, though), and bruising to the torso (possibly indicating a fractured rib or two). Fracture to the right tibia and deep tissue bruising around the left shoulder.

His room is quiet except for the drip of whatever the hell cocktail it is that Tsunade hooked him up to, and the shift of the lawn curtains over the open window. Shizune finds the man leaning docile against the wall by the windowframe, eyes closed and face puckered in a grimace of pain, despite the drugs.

Probably from getting out of bed when he isn't supposed to.

Irritated, she strides across the room and takes a hold of his arm. He starts sluggishly, his left eye dark with sleep and other things; his right, even hidden behind layers of gauze and surgical tape, sees through her completely. Shizune's normal disposition is a gentle one, compassionate to a fault and her better nature reasserts itself as she steadies the (much) taller man and leads him back to the bed.

"Doing that isn't good for your recovery," she chides gently, deftly maneuvering him into a prone position. Shizune decides to try for a little humor, worried by her patient's grey features. "You're lucky that it was me that found you and not Tsunade-sama. She would have gotten you back to bed with more injuries than when you left it."

The white-haired man does not reply. His head rolls listlessly to the side, and Shizune finds that she can't meet his gaze because it's so painfully bleak.

"What … happened?"

Though his voice is little more than a rough whisper, Shizune starts in surprise; dark eyes wide, mouth rounded in an 'o' of astonishment. Neither she nor Tsunade had expected him to be able to speak so soon.

"Well," the dark-haired medic murmurs straightening his twisted sheets. "What do you remember?" And what do you really want to know?

"Sasuke, yelling." She can tell that each word is hard for him. He swallows and coughs; manages to choke out the rest in a strangled gasp. "Sewing, Naruto."

She nods. "We don't know exactly what happened. Neither you nor Sasuke have been in a state to say."

His dull eye sharpens, lightens from charcoal to rain; fills with questions. Shizune busies herself with checking his vitals. His skin is hot and dry as she takes his pulse. The woman finds that she really doesn't want to discuss this; betrayal is something best related by someone close, or at least someone with more answers. And she doesn't think she fits either bill.

"We think that the awakening of his new Sharingan combined with Orochimaru's seal triggered a psychotic break," Shizune moves her fingers delicately across his scalp, checking, trying to distract herself from the subject matter. Detach. She doesn't tell him that Sasuke is a raving loon imprisoned in a padded room, watched by a complete vanguard of ANBU. "We know he attacked you. We know he nearly broke your neck. We know he tried to gouge out your Sharingan."

She checks the wrappings around his head, makes sure they are secure, clean; satisfied she nods to herself and steps back. Kakashi's face is unreadable. She doesn't dare even guess what is going on in his enigmatic head. Doesn't want to guess. Feeling unaccountable awkward for no reason, Shizune attempts a smile that falls very flat and gathers her equipment. Charts and scrolls under one arm, the other bracing her stomach.

"Well," she says with as much brisk impersonality as she can muster. "Regardless, you need to rest to recover. The Hokage or I will check on you in a little while."

The injured shinobi does not respond. Shizune isn't certain whether she's relieved or not. "Try to get some sleep," she tells him, exiting slowly. She casts one last glace at his silent figure as she leaves, and thinks to herself that sometimes saving a life and making sure someone lived are two entirely different things.