Beginning Notes: Though not explicit, there are random references to Obito, Rin, and even Itachi in this one.
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In Propria Persona
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The engraver was gripping a mask no larger than an udon bowl, feeling along its front in a cursory test for durability. It felt kunai-cold when suddenly pressed against Kakashi's face, all the necessary measurements made quickly before it was then swiped away. Kakashi's pupil contracted just in time for him to see it gouged into without hesitation, the shavings scattering across the floor like discarded fingernails, the knife chipping away and twisting, until a pair of unseeing eyes settled on the mask's surface in a poorer echo of his own.
Blind socketless eyes raging on a face that was blind.
With a flick of the wrist, the engraver brushed off excess wood-dust, then jutted out his chin. "Which animal?" He asked, twirling the knife between his fingers. Waiting.
"Dog" meant a crescent smile with a shortened jaw, but was a birthright reserved exclusively for those borne Inuzuka. The village liked to operate within the parameters of clan families and Kakashi knew this all too well. To carry on his christened name was probably expected of him, but seeing as how the nobility of Hatake had died once his father's gut was self-sliced, he wondered idly if it was taboo to have old ghosts revived.
"Wolf," he replied.
The engraver stopped twirling his knife.
"Did you say 'Wolf'?"
Kakashi watched more of the wood perish in silence. Eggshell pieces flew off for the price of the nose; two deep punctures gave way to underside nostrils. Further down, a wavy lip-line was sculpted for what Kakashi believed was solely for decorative purposes, a mere depression in the wood that cast the mask into a lamenting leer. The engraver withheld his knife briefly, if only to study his handiwork, and then resumed the rest of his attack. A hill of cheek was made flatter. The forehead's center, sharper. Distinct promotions for a lupine curvature.
The mask was fitted onto Kakashi's face once more before finally being shoved into his hand. It felt like touching a porcelain skull.
"Take it to the room on the left," the engraver instructed.
The room on the left permeated with the stink of formaldehyde and turpentine. A colorist approached him immediately.
"Are you the Copy Ninja?"
Kakashi nodded.
"This way."
She directed him to a table with supplies, many of which Kakashi recognized. Soiled cotton swabs. Small jars that were filled, but with paint instead of ointment. Senbon needles. Gauze. Next to them, several ink tablets were lined up together like tiny graves, some wet, some dry, running in a full gamut of pigments.
The colorist leaned forward, expectant, and Kakashi handed over the mask.
"What is this?" Lengthy fingers cradled the blunt snout. "Dog?"
"Wolf," Kakashi answered.
The colorist sat down, one hand entangled by the mask, the other free to float over her paintbrushes. She drew a midsize one from among the collection before pausing, as if trying to remember the design for Wolf, then allowed the tip to be lowered into one of the jars, emerging but a second later, baptized entirely in black.
The paint was lapped up greedily by the wood, drying almost instantly upon contact. Twin plumes sprouted on either side, emblems to the mask as whiskers were for wolves. More was smeared over the mouth, while streaks around the hole-eyes improved the cavernous guise. For a moment, Kakashi was even convinced he could see its teeth, the black depth creeping against the expanse of white, the daylight slowly surrendering into night.
At quarter-moon, the Wolf was complete.
Kakashi extended his hand, but to his surprise, the colorist dismissed the act.
Instead, she traded in the used paintbrush for a fresh one, a thinner one, and with a darting eye, Kakashi followed its path into the belly of a jar. It was soon lifted out, hairs matted bloody by the paint, dripping, and everything that had been pitted black the first time was resung again in red. Though tracing the eyes required an instance of replenishment, the mouth began and ended in a single scarlet stroke. The red commanded. It made the face look wounded, and after blinking, aflame. Kakashi stared at the massacre wordlessly, and privately awaited explanation.
The colorist tilted her head and looked at him. He wondered if she could read his thoughts.
"Twice as much red would mean you were an Uchiha," she said softly.
Then she returned to him the mask.
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