Disclaimer: I would love to take all the credit for Naruto, because I think that the world and the concepts are absolutely brilliant, but sadly, nothing except Shuurai no Jutsu, Kyouken no Jutsu, and Inuzuka Kiyame's current incarnation belong to me.
Author's Note: Poor Kakashi. This just isn't his day.
Chapter Two: Feral
The chakra lightning bolt took him squarely in the chest, a little below the collarbone. Kakashi saw it hit, saw the white streak flash from the hands of the shadowed figure across the stream bank, saw it sink sizzling into his vest and burn its way through. He saw, as his head whiplashed back with the force of his scream and his nerves seared with agony, his own left hand outlined in white fire. Both kunai dropped from his nerveless fingers. Pain bit into his shoulder as the second Cloud shinobi's fuuma shuriken sank down through his vest and into his flesh, but that pain was nothing, a candle flame next to the Katon Goukakyuu that raged through his veins.
His knees buckled, and his hands refused to catch his fall. His muscles weren't his anymore; pain ruled his body now. His shoulder smashed against a sharp rock on the bank, and then his head hit the same rock, and his body wasn't just not paying attention to him, it was moving on its own…
He convulsed, choking on blood, and rocks ripped at his flesh and he could feel his mask tearing and why was he worrying about his stupid mask when he was dying?
I never meant to go like this, he thought as his body flailed, every heartbeat pumping agony through his veins. I meant to go out fighting, saving Konoha, like Sensei. I meant to die saving my friends, like Obito. I wanted to make my death mean something—to atone for my father's…
I am not going to let them take that from me!
He bit down on his lip so hard that blood filled his mouth again, but this time it was his own action, his muscles following the orders of his own thoughts, his own pain—his own control. Slowly the spasms calmed, and he lay still but for the occasional agonizing judder that seized his muscles. He lay on his left side, one arm trapped under him, with the stream tugging at his legs and his hip knocking gently against the rocky streambed. He was wet and cold and hurting all over, and he felt as weak as when he'd collapsed, drained of chakra, after the first battle with Zabuza…but he was alive.
Was the Inuzuka?
He tried to lift his head, but he barely managed to pull his cheek away from the rocky ground. The shreds of his forehead protector fell from his head, and the metal plate hit the rocks and bounced away with a clang. He must have torn the headband as well as the mask during his seizure. His field of vision was much wider than he was used to, but he could still only see rocks smeared with his blood, a foreshortened view of his lower body half-submerged in the stream, and—a leg?
A woman's leg, planted firmly on the ground a hand's-breadth away from his shoulder, muscled calf wrapped in black cloth bindings and tanned foot clad in a black sandal. Blood seeped down from underneath the leg bindings to dye the woman's bare heel crimson. She was straddling him, he realized, standing over him to protect the man who'd meant to come to her rescue…
"Can you move, Hakate-san?" she asked in a low voice.
"N-not just yet." Kakashi forced the words out through leaden lips. No need to ask how she knew his name; his silver-white hair, masked face, and covered eye were familiar to every ninja in Konoha. "Need…breathing space. Gods!" The last time he could remember experiencing this level of pain had seen him trapped in Uchiha Itachi's Tsukuyomi Sharingan technique for three days of illusionary torture. That technique had left him in a coma for a month. This one would probably do even worse damage.
"He won't be moving at all," one of the Cloud missing-nin said mockingly. Kakashi mentally pinpointed the voice as perhaps five meters away, on the near side of the stream. It sounded like the shinobi who'd used the fuuma shuriken.
He must've moved when I went down—but why didn't he finish me off?
The Cloud ninja answered his unspoken question a moment later. "That Lightning Strike technique should have killed him immediately. Even so, his nervous system is fried. Don't worry about him, girlie. He won't go anywhere. We'll take care of him after we're finished with you."
Inuzuka replied with a string of words that would've sent half the jounin in Konoha running for cover. "Don't think you can scare me," she finished with a snarl. "And don't you dare try any seals, you motherless cowards, 'cause I'll rip your fingers off and shove 'em down your throats. I'm Inuzuka Kiyame of Konoha, and you don't mess with me and my team and come out of it alive." Her dogs growled approval.
Silence, for the space of half a dozen heartbeats. Kakashi hitched his left arm under him and tried applying a little leverage—he wasn't doing any good lying here—but didn't manage to make it more than a couple centimeters off the ground. He paused, panting. At least now he could see the Cloud shinobi, who didn't seem to have noticed him yet. The three men stood together at the edge of the woods, looking almost as beaten up as Inuzuka Kiyame, if not quite as bloody. The tallest one still held his fuuma shuriken, while the slender man who'd first stepped out of the woods now wielded a katana. The third stood bare-handed, his dark hair masking his face. Tiny lightnings still played over his fingers. Kakashi swallowed. He's the one who used that jutsu on me. Can he do it again, or does it have a usage limit, like the Chidori? Well, if he does try it, at least this time I'll have a chance to copy it…
If he could force his hands to work. If he could mold enough chakra to perform such a powerful jutsu. At the moment, both seemed impossible.
Two of Kiyame's dogs were still on their feet, pacing about a meter in front of the Konoha ninjas and growling louder than Naruto's stomach after a full day of training. The third, the critically injured male Katsu, lay in an ungainly heap of bloody grey fur two meters to Kakashi's right. The dog's sides still heaved as he fought for air. Somehow, the sight relieved Kakashi. He'd never worked with an Inuzuka, but the clan's partnerships with their dogs was legendary, and having a dog die on her now—after already suffering the deaths of her three teammates—would probably drive this girl over the brink.
The missing-nin had reached the same conclusion. "Well, then," the one with the katana said pleasantly. "We'll just solve this the messy way, eh?"
It happened almost too fast for even Kakashi to follow. The missing-nin took a step forward, raising his katana. Kiyame cried out—a warning, a curse, a prayer, Kakashi would never know. The two dogs snarled and sprang, attacking from each side but moving so perfectly in tandem that they were like a single furious beast. The missing-nin pivoted smoothly, the blade of his katana flashing first steely grey, then dripping red…
Oh, little gods and demons…
Kiyame's scream of rage and grief ripped at Kakashi's heart. It was too much like the soundless cry that had echoed inside him at every moment for months after Obito's death, the cry that returned to ring in his ears every time he saw a new name carved on the memorial or glanced at the picture of the three students he'd trained and loved and protected…and ultimately failed. He hadn't realized how much he'd loved them until he'd lost them, which was always how it happened; it'd been the same with Obito and then Rin, two years later.
But then, Kiyame knew what she'd lost. Two of three dogs, closer than teammates, a second and third soul—and the fourth was lying there on the rocks, gasping out his life, and the missing-nin was heading towards it with a smile…
"Akira," Kiyame whispered. "Amaya. You won't go alone." The katana dropped from her fingers and clattered on the rocks by Kakashi's nose. He caught his breath, pushed himself up another few centimeters, and reached for her leg—No, don't throw yourself away!—but she evaded his grasp effortlessly. Her hands were already moving as she stepped between the Cloud shinobi and her last dog. The seals she formed were powerful, violent, in a simple combination Kakashi had never seen: Dragon, Boar, Dog. She held the Dog seal as she closed her eyes.
"Kyouken no Jutsu!"
Mad Dog Technique? Kakashi wondered, in the split second before Kiyame opened her eyes.
They were bright gold, and there was nothing of sanity in them anymore.
The Cloud nin wasn't watching her eyes, and for a moment he didn't notice the change. But no one could ignore the claws that sprouted from her fingers and toes, or the fangs that suddenly distended her lips, or the shift in her stance that left her crouched on the ground, clawed hands gripping the rocks and fangs bared in an unholy smile.
Kakashi's Sharingan saw the jutsu, of course. He watched the chakra flow within the girl's body and knew that without even wanting to, he could copy those changes—he was, after all, still the legendary Copy Ninja Sharingan Kakashi, even if at this point he felt like nothing so much as a piece of raw meat. But beyond the physical changes, the Sharingan saw something he knew not even an Uchiha could copy. It reminded him of a Celestial Gate, only this was a Gate that held back not chakra, but…something else. Something that glittered in the woman's eyes as it erased all traces of human sanity and replaced them with pure lust for blood. Something that saw the three Cloud nins as prey.
The Cloud shinobi faltered just for a moment, his eyes widening as he took in the effects of Kiyame's ninjutsu. That moment was his last. The ANBU sprang, twisted in midair to avoid his slashing katana, and sank her fangs into his throat. The force of her attack half-ripped the missing-nin's head off. Blood fountained out, pattering down on the rocks in a rich red rain.
Kiyame wrenched her claws out of the body and tossed it aside. Her mad golden eyes seemed almost to glow out of her blood-masked face as they flickered to the remaining two missing-nin. A growl rumbled deep in her chest. The dark-haired Cloud raised his hands again, fingers meeting for the first seal—
If he finishes that jutsu, she's dead, Kakashi thought. There's only one thing I can do…
His fingers still wouldn't work quite right, and his right arm barely worked at all, but he forced them on ruthlessly, racing through the seals as his eyes locked on the two missing-nin. Bird, Ox, Serpent, don't break eye contact, concentrate, dredge up that last little bit of chakra you know is there—
He'd lost his old speed, didn't know if he'd ever get it back, but the technique he'd chosen took two seals less than the Cloud's jutsu. This time, Kakashi wasn't too late. He finished a breath ahead of the other man, gathered all his remaining chakra, and shouted, "Kanashibari no Jutsu!"
"Shuurai no Jutsu!" the Cloud nin bellowed a second later.
The lightning bolt gathered in the missing-nin's hands—and stayed there. Kakashi's Body Binding technique had locked the Cloud shinobi's muscles, and the lightning sputtered uselessly around the man's hands. His eyes widened in horror.
Kiyame howled in triumph.
Out of the corner of his right eye, Kakashi saw the lupine woman attack. He had time enough to close his eyes against the savage horror, time enough to wrench his gaze from the terrified faces of the two men who saw their death bounding toward them with dripping fangs. But he thought of the mangled ANBU he'd found in the clearing, and the defenseless farmers the missing-nins had robbed and butchered, and the two dogs whose heads no longer joined their shoulders. Breaking eye contact would break the binding jutsu, and not even Gai's student Lee could outrun that lightning.
And besides, Kakashi was a jounin of Konoha, elite among the elite. He had killed his first man at the age of six, shortly after he became chuunin. He had joined the ANBU at fourteen, two days after his sensei died saving Konoha from the Kyuubi. He had served in ANBU for six years, performing more missions and killing more enemies than he could count. He'd grown used to the feeling of a heart's last desperate pump as his Chidori-powered hand punched through his target's chest. Was that any less savage than this?
So he held the Body Binding jutsu, and he did not look away as Kiyame tore the remaining two missing-nin into shreds so small no one would ever recognize them. He watched with his own eye and with Obito's, and he managed not to be sick.
It was not any worse than the deaths her ANBU teammates had met, after all.
At last Kiyame's blood-lust seemed to slake. She turned in a slow, bewildered circle among the scattered remnants of her victims, still crouched on all fours and now almost totally dyed in blood. Kakashi watched with narrowed eyes, waiting for her to release the jutsu. That wound on her leg had been bleeding badly and was probably worse now after her intensely physical attack. One of her arms was injured as well, and—
Ouch. He bit his lip and stopped his clumsy attempt to sit up as his wounded shoulder screamed pain at him. In the wake of the lightning strike, he'd almost forgotten the giant shuriken that had sliced into his shoulder; he'd noticed that his right arm worked even less than his left, but he'd been too busy to think about it. Now, with the pain of the electrocution beginning to fade away, his other injuries pushed themselves to his attention. His face… He lifted his fingers to the gashed cheek, now left bare by a mask torn beyond hope of recovery. Well, the bandages he'd be wearing for the next week or so would serve the purpose well enough.
His aid kit was on the back of his belt, in the hip pouch that also held spare kunai, explosion notes, ration bars, and—when not on missions—a dog-eared copy of Icha Icha Paradise. Most of his lower body still lay in the chill waters of the stream, but fortunately the pouch was water-proof. His explosion notes might be damp, but the bandages in the sealed aid kit should still be dry. And, praise the gods, his legs were beginning to work again! He wormed his way further up the bank, pulled the kit out of the pouch, and set his teeth against the sharp knife of pain as he pushed himself up into a sitting position.
He had to cover the Sharingan first, before it drained any more of his tiny reservoir of remaining chakra. He was a little surprised he hadn't passed out already—Guess I must be stronger than I thought. Huh. You were right as usual, Yondaime-sensei. We only have limits so we can surpass 'em.
The headband that had once held his forehead protector over his eye was now beyond repair. He stuffed it into his pouch and wrapped a few lengths of white bandage clumsily around his head instead, wincing when his fingers brushed raw flesh. The shoulder wound had rendered his right arm almost useless—he couldn't raise it above waist level—but he wasn't a jounin for nothing, and he managed to tie the bandage one-handed after only a few minutes of fumbling. With Obito's eye covered at last, the Sharingan's relentless drain of chakra dammed, he turned his attention to the next objective.
"Ah—Inuzuka-san!"
She had crouched at the edge of the woods, facing away from him, her shoulders bowed and her head bent. Somehow her hair had escaped from its strict ponytail, and now the long dark locks fell around her face, tangled and matted with blood. Her head lifted slightly at his call, baring the reddened curve of her cheek. He could only faintly make out the crimson fang tattooed on her cheek beneath the new mask of blood. Have to make sure to wash her face before we get back to Konoha—but who'm I kidding? She could've bathed in blood—it looks like she did—and it still wouldn't be the worse thing the medic-nins've seen…
Still, he kept his voice low, soothing. Who knew what she was thinking now, as she stared at the hands that had so recently torn three men's lives from their bodies? "Inuzuka-san, I'd better take a look at that leg. It could—"
The words strangled in his throat. She had turned to face him, and now he saw that bloody claws still gleamed at her finger-tips, that vicious fangs still distorted her full mouth, that golden eyes still glowed with madness beneath her thin dark brows.
Dear gods, she hasn't released the jutsu…and I've just brought myself to her attention…
He reached left-handed for a kunai, but even as his hand closed around the cold metal hilt, he knew he wouldn't be able to do anything but buy himself a slightly more dignified death. It wasn't just that the bestial jutsu had lent her an almost blinding speed, or that his body was still too weak and slow to defend himself from any sort of attack above the genin level, or even that he'd exhausted almost all his chakra. All of those were true, but it was the voices echoing distantly in the back of his skull that convinced him he couldn't kill her. Obito's voice. Those who don't care about their companions are even worse trash… And his own. I don't let my comrades die…
Never mind that she wasn't truly a teammate of his, never mind that he'd never seen or spoken to her before today. She was a ninja of Konoha, and he couldn't kill a comrade just to save his own scarred and sorry hide.
He smiled a little, grimly, sadly. He'd spent the last fifteen years of his life regretting every day that he'd lived and Obito hadn't. Obito and Rin and Yondaime-sensei, his father twenty years ago and the Sandaime not yet a year ago. He'd see them all soon enough, and at last he'd be able to tell Obito how truly, deeply, desperately sorry he was that even with Obito's gift, he'd not managed to make much of his life. He'd had chances, and he'd thrown almost all of them away; students, and he'd failed them; friends, and he'd lost them one by one.
At least the missing-nin are dead. I saved one life and helped take two. Does it balance?
I hope, Inuzuka Kiyame, that if you ever recover your mind, you'll never remember this moment…
He drew his legs up and rested his forearm on his bent knees, with the kunai dangling loosely from his fingers. He couldn't hope to hold her off for long, but at least he'd be able to buy himself a bit of pride, a shred of dignity. A jounin of Konoha never went down without a fight.
She paced slowly towards him, her lips skinning back to bare her teeth. Her low growl raised the short hairs on the back of his neck. Staring into those rabid golden eyes, he wondered if there was anything of the proud kunoichi left in that body. "Inuzuka-san? Kiyame? Can you understand me?"
The eyes didn't flicker. She was only three meters away now; in a moment her teeth would meet in his throat. He twirled the kunai around his finger and slapped the hilt into the palm of his hand. Aim to injure, not to kill…
In the corner of Kakashi's eye, a bloody heap of grey and white fur stirred, scrabbled at the rocky ground, and heaved itself to its feet. A deep, harsh bark split through Kiyame's snarl. The feral woman froze, and for the first time her savage mask cracked. Her eyes darted in confusion from Kakashi to the dog. Kakashi held his breath, watching the wounded dog take one unsteady step forward, then another. The white fur of his belly was matted with blood and dirt, and he whined with pain at every step, but he kept going. Four steps, five…and then he was between the two Konoha ninjas, his sides heaving with effort and pain, his ears laced back against his head and his hackles bristling. He stood facing his Inuzuka partner, shielding Kakashi with his body. His snarl was ragged with pain, but the message was clear: You'll have to go through me to get to him. Can you?
Kiyame made a low, unhappy noise in the back of her throat. She stretched out one clawed, blood-dyed hand, then dropped it again. The dog barked again, sharply, and Kiyame shuddered at the sound. Her eyes closed briefly, then reopened in time for Kakashi to see the last streaks of mad gold fading from their horrified brown depths. Somehow, the dog had broken the jutsu…and returned Inuzuka Kiyame to a scene of unimaginable carnage.
"Hatake-san—" the young woman whispered, her voice hoarse with shock. "Did I—oh gods, I almost attacked you—Katsu, if you hadn't—" She held out her bloody hand to the dog, who took an eager step toward her, stumbled, and crumpled to the ground. Kiyame swore and fumbled desperately for the aid-kit at her belt. She seemed to have completely forgotten Kakashi; well, he couldn't blame her. If that dog died now…
She could quite possibly go mad again. And this time, there would be no one to bring her out of it.
His fingers curled around the cold hilt of the kunai. She seems all right…but all the same, I don't think I'll put this away just yet.
Well, just sitting here won't do much good…
His muscles were obeying his commands reasonably well, which called for further experimentation. He planted his left palm on the ground and tried to lever himself up. To his dismay, his elbow buckled, pitching him onto his side and jarring his wounded shoulder. Damn, that hurt! Too weak to even stand up…some shinobi! What've you done today but thoroughly botch this 'rescue?' If you had thought instead of just jumping straight in, you'd have sensed the guy across the stream and blocked his lightning bolt, and none of this would have happened.
Lightning bolt…
His fingers dropped from his shoulder to his chest. Too concerned with the effects of the jutsu on his muscles and nervous system, he hadn't even thought about what the chakra lightning might have done at its entry point. It hadn't hurt any more than the rest of him had—which probably just meant that the nerve endings had been burnt so badly that he'd lost all feeling. Nothing Tsunade-sama couldn't fix…but the fixing was going to hurt.
Jounin flak vests were supposed to be water-proof, flame-resistant, and even moderately stylish. I think I'm withdrawing my endorsement, Kakashi thought sourly as he fingered the charred hole in the center of his vest. The zipper had melted into an amorphous blob of silvery metal, and the stiff olive-green canvas had peeled away from an ugly blistering burn that rayed out from a central point on his breastbone like a squished spider. His shirt had disintegrated altogether. Worst of all, with the zipper melted he'd have to cut the blasted vest off in order to tend either his burned chest or his gashed shoulder. The shoulder wound wasn't more than a couple of centimeters deep, but aside from rendering his right arm practically useless, it was also bleeding steadily, sapping even more of his dangerous low chakra.
At this rate, I'm going to have to ask Inuzuka for help. Kakashi grimaced. The blood-drenched kunoichi was still kneeling over her dog, alternately swearing and cajoling in a voice now fierce, now pleading. The slightest of trembles had crept into her voice, but her hands were still admirably steady as she stiched the gaping wound in Katsu's belly. Now is not a good time, Kakashi decided. Ah well. I can hang on. I've survived far worse injuries than this, after all… He just couldn't think of any, which was funny, because he knew the scars were there, if he looked down he could see them snaking over his chest and belly, pale skin that never saw the sunlight because who would want to show off a hide that rivaled Morino Ibiki's head for sheer number and intensity of scars? Kakashi…you're delirious. He groaned. Well, at least his body and mind had chosen a time of relative safety to start shutting down… He seemed to have a knack for it; the same thing had happened with Zabuza. If I'm lucky, I've got five minutes before I pass out…
Probably less than that. His vision was getting hazy already. Was that really Maito Gai dropping out of the trees onto one of the only clear spots of grass, followed by a tiny dun-colored nin-dog, Sarutobi Asuma, and Yuuhi Kurenai? He had to be hallucinating. Gai wasn't even in Konoha; he and his team had left three weeks ago for a mission in Water Country. But…why would Kakashi hallucinate his self-proclaimed eternal rival? Surely there were much more pleasant—and far more unpleasant—images to haunt his fever-dreams.
The hallucinations were talking. Voices drifted in and out of his hearing.
Kurenai, hoarse with shock: "Kiyame! Dear gods, what—"
Asuma, a low murmur: "Whatever did this…that is one seriously pissed ninja…"
And Gai, no longer loud and abrasive, but speaking in the quiet, preternaturally calm tone Kakashi had only heard a few times in his life, when he'd been young and stupid and hovering on the edge of death: "Hold on, Kakashi. Hold on. We're here. Pakkun appeared in Tsunade-sama's office just as I was delivering my report…there's a medic-team behind us, you're gonna be okay." A large hand closed over Kakashi's limp fingers, and a green silk handkerchief drifted over his ravaged face. "There you go. Feel any better?"
No hallucination would be so concerned. No hallucination would remember to cover his face. No hallucination would care.
Kakashi squeezed Gai's hand weakly. "Hey…I thought…I'm the one who's…always late."
Gai laughed quietly. "Yeah, well, the rest of us have gotta have some glory sometime… Hang on, Kakashi. You're gonna make it."
A grin now, even weaker than the hand-squeeze, and Gai's face was out of focus and fading into a fuzzy blend of black and brown and startling white… "I'm…Hatake Kakashi. I always do."
Author's Note
Techniques:
Kyuichose no Jutsu: Summoning technique (canon)
Henge no Jutsu: Transformation technique (canon)
Shuurai no Jutsu: Lightning Strike technique (original)
Katon Goukakyuu: Fire Element, Grand Fireball (canon)
Kyouken no Jutsu: Mad Dog technique (original)
Kanashibari no Jutsu: Body Binding technique (canon; used by Orochimaru against Sasuke and Sakura in the second test of the Chuunin exams; original adaptation for Kakashi's version, since I don't know the exact seals he and the other Konoha ANBU would use.)
Many thanks and much praise to my splendiferous (I told you I'd find a way to work that word in!) beta, Phoenix Of Eternity, who has constantly encouraged and inspired me in the writing of this fic. Her comments and criticism have been invaluable.
Many thanks also to anyone who reads and reviews. I like to know how my work is accepted, and I love constructive criticism. Please tell me what you think!