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To Kill
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It was early in the morning still, and the sun was just about to rise. Kakashi was standing in front of Komachi's flat. He was waiting for her to leave for work. Usually he'd still be lying in his bed, but he wanted to speak with this woman, and he couldn't think of another way than to lay in wait in front of her home.
He pulled out the seal that Kagura had given him. It showed him when Kagura was not on active duty, and in return helped him pin down when Komachi would be home.
Not long after, the door to the flat opened and a woman with green-blue eyes and olive-blond hair stepped outside. She was not wearing anbu attire yet, but the usual Konoha vest and black trousers. Still, Kakashi was certain that this was Naruto's anbu guard. He knew her well enough from back in the days, when he himself was still part of a Genin team.
She quickly noticed him standing nearby, but ignored his presence. When Kakashi approached her, she asked, "Can I help you?"
He told her that he needed to speak with her.
"I'm on my way to work." She didn't stop to talk but continued towards the Hokage building. Her eyes kept checking the area to make sure no one was close-by to hear their conversation. It was so early that the streets were almost empty still.
"It's about Naruto," Kakashi continued as he followed her down the road. "He needs more training."
"Aren't you his teacher?"
"He needs special training. And a special teacher."
"Go and be a special teacher then."
Kakashi didn't stop even though Komachi barely even glanced at him. Around them, Konoha slowly awoke and its people got ready for a new day. Light after light was switched on and windows opened for fresh morning air.
"I don't think you understand," Kakashi said. "He needs someone who can teach him to control the kyuubi. And I can't be that person. I'm lacking knowledge and experience."
Komachi didn't answer nor react.
"You were Minato's teammate. And you know Naruto a lot better than I do. Don't you -"
She stopped so abruptly Kakashi almost bumped into her. "Are you really here asking me to be Naruto's teacher? Because I am sure you are aware that would be highly inappropriate. Or does the Hokage know of this?"
Kakashi didn't know what he had expected. He hadn't talked to Komachi in many years, but she was still the same person he remembered her as. Strict and rule-abiding. This was a dead end. Yet he felt like there was hardly anything to lose, so he kept digging.
"Then at least tell me what you know about the Kyuubi."
"You must have read Naruto's file. I can't tell you any more."
He was almost glad that she mentioned that file. "The report said you were present when Naruto's former teacher was killed by the Amaterasu. I wonder, why did your partner even use such a destructive jutsu that night?"
Her eyes and lips grew hard. For a moment, Kakashi feared she would yell at him. Yet she didn't. "Know your place, Kakashi." Even her voice sounded hard, like a threat almost. "You are his teacher, nothing more. Do what you were ordered to do."
The woman had enough and with one good jump, she was atop a building, continuing her way to the Hokage building up there.
Kakashi sighed. It wasn't like he wanted to sniff around. Such behaviour only caused problems, and Kakashi certainly didn't want any of that in his life. Yet the Amaterasu incident stayed on his mind. If it was connected to Naruto and the Kyuubi, then he had to know. Because he certainly didn't want one of his students to end up being grilled by black flames.
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Naruto was full of energy when he arrived at their meeting spot the next morning. He was ready to learn ninjutsu, and he was ready to face whatever demon was inside him. He brought snacks for his friends. Naruto loved food, and sharing food with people was his way of showing how much they meant to him.
He gave some chocolates to Naho, chips to Sasuke, because he'd said that he didn't like sweets, and some carrots to Sakura.
"Why are you giving chocolate and chips to them and all I get are some carrots?! Do you think I'm too fat or what?" Sakura seemed furious, and Naruto not only earned himself one, but two knocks on the head this time.
"But… Didn't you say you were on a diet? You never eat sweets if I offer any, so I thought…"
Sakura only curled her lips at Naruto whenever he tried to talk to her until their teacher arrived.
"What is this place, sensei?" Naruto asked and looked up at the immense fence. They had met fairly outside of Konoha, at Training Ground 44.
"This is the training ground I asked you to meet at," Kakashi said. "Some call it the Forest of Death."
Naruto whistled. "Sounds fun."
"It told you guys that there is one exercise I want to do with you before we get into learning elemental jutsu."
"Does it have something to do with learning jutsu? Like more chakra control?" Sakura asked. She too was genuinely interested.
"No," Kakashi said. "It has something to do with learning how to kill. Take a life."
His students were more disappointed than surprised. They had talked about this in the Academy. They all knew this was part of a shinobi's life. This was what they had been trained for. Nevertheless, they had been looking forward to learning ninjutsu.
"Do we have to stab straw men again? I thought we'd finally do something useful," Sasuke complained. "I don't need to learn how to kill. I need to be given the tools."
"Now, now. Tools won't do you any good if you can't use them when actually facing another living being. And not a straw man. So let's listen to the exercise first," Kakashi said before continuing. "There are many dangerous animals, as well as plants, inside of this enclosure. I want each one of you to go in there, hunt an animal, kill it, and bring it to me. You decide yourself what kind of animal you choose. The only requirement is that it's a mammal. Bring me a mouse or a tiger, I don't care. But I don't want to see any fish or insects and the likes."
"You want us to go hunting? Where's the difficulty in that?" Naruto asked.
"Well, if it's that easy I'm sure you'll have this exercise completed in less than an hour, Naruto. Which will be perfect because I have some special exercises for you."
Naruto was intrigued, and motivated.
"So if we finish the exercise early we get to do other exercises?" Sasuke did not see how hunting would help him improve his skills at all. He wanted ninjutsu.
Kakashi shook his head. "Naruto will receive special training from me from now on. The other three of you will continue training as usual. But don't worry, I doubt you'll complete this as quickly as you imagine."
Sasuke was not happy to hear that Naruto would receive training he did not, but Kakashi ignored his dark glances and continued his explanation.
"Stay away from weird looking plants. Don't eat anything you find on the ground. If you are in trouble, don't be ashamed to yell for help. I might just decide to come and save you. If you get bit by a snake or insect, or notice a rash or anything similar on your skin, you come back here immediately, understood? I'm not telling you this to bother you, but because you might actually die if you are too proud or dumb to quit. This is not a mission, and I expect you to make smart decisions that prioritise your life first of all. Those who fail today will try again tomorrow. But if you can't complete this exercise, there is no use wasting your time learning ninjutsu."
"Are we allowed to work together?" Sakura asked. She wasn't really looking forward to killing an animal.
"This is no competition, but you will all have to catch and kill your own animal. If you want to work together to come up with any plans, that is fine with me. As long as each of you can present me with their own prey at the end of the day."
Naruto was eager to start. So was Sasuke. They wanted to get this exercise over with quickly to move on to the next. The girls were less enthusiastic.
Kakashi opened one of the big gates for his students. Immediately, the two boys ran off in opposite directions. Sakura and Naho followed, but they were lacking the same kind of motivation. So they slowly vanished into the forest together.
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None of the four Genin expected the hardest part of the exercise to be finding any animals in the first place. Naruto was quickly losing motivation when he ran through the forest and could not spot any animal whatsoever. Him jumping around the forest eventually flushed some birds. He threw kunai after kunai, but couldn't get any to hit. The birds moved too quickly, and the trajectory of his weapon was sort of a mystery to him.
He decided to create a few Shadow Clones that helped him search the forest for prey. They didn't exactly have a plan, but figured that if they just kept racing around the place and made enough of a noise, more animals would eventually be startled and show.
It was the first time Naruto summoned more than one Shadow Clone at once. Each clone took more effort to create. Each time the chakra was harder to collect. Each time it felt like he had to draw harder, rip it out from deep inside of him. So after three clones he stopped, feeling that this last clone left him strangely depressed. His motivation from the beginning of the day was gone. He brushed it off and sent his clones running in all directions.
Eventually Naruto did manage to get someone's attention, though it wasn't that of an animal. Sakura and Naho were close-by, roaming the forest together, when Naruto sped past them yelling in hope to scare animals out of their hiding place. He stopped when he saw them.
"Were you successful yet?" he asked.
They both shook their heads. "Not if you keep yelling like this," Naho said.
"Why? Those animals will show themselves eventually."
"They can hear you from miles away and run off before you can ever get close," Sakura said.
"Or before we can get close," Naho added.
Suddenly a clone of Naruto came running at them with a dead bird in his hand. He stopped next to the three and triumphantly held it up. "I managed to catch this one!"
"Sweet!" Naruto immediately exclaimed and took the dead animal from him before dispelling the clone. "See, I knew this would work. This is such an easy exercise."
"You killed that one?" Sakura stared at the bird hanging head-down.
Naruto was proud.
"But Naruto, that's not a mammal," Naho said. "It's a bird."
"Huh? But Kakashi-sensei said no fish and insects."
"Yeah, those were just examples. Birds are also no mammals. They are… birds."
Naruto nodded while taking it all in. "Right, right. I think I remember that one class at the Academy that had us categorise animals. There were also reptiles and… What was the last one?"
"Amphibians," Naho said.
"Right! Man, I totally forgot about that. It's been so long." He looked at the dead bird in his hand. "What should I do with this one then? I don't want Kakashi-sensei to know that I caught a wrong animal." His eyes fell on some bushes close by, and both girls could tell that he was considering getting rid of it.
Sakura didn't like what she was seeing. "You are not going to just throw it away, are you?"
"Why not?" Naruto asked. "It's not like I need it anymore."
Sakura looked like she was somewhere in between punching Naruto in the face and starting to cry. "You are stupid, Naruto. Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she yelled at him before running off further into the forest.
Naruto and Naho watched after her, confused. "Telling me once would have been enough," Naruto sulked. "I'm sorry I can't remember every single thing they taught us at the Academy."
Naho glanced at him. "I think she's upset because you said you'd throw the bird away."
Naruto didn't understand. "What else am I supposed to do? I can't just give it to Kakashi-sensei. It's not a mammal."
"Yeah, but… You shouldn't kill animals without a reason. Just like you shouldn't kill humans without reason. This bird, it died for nothing. And then you wanted to get rid of it like nothing happened."
He held the bird up higher to look at its head. The eyes were closed, its beak wide open. And suddenly, Naruto did feel bad for killing it, even though he'd been excited only a few minutes ago. "So what should I do now?"
Naho shrugged. "Maybe you could bury it. It's better than throwing it away."
"Burying?"
"That's what you do when someone dies. It shows you care."
Not far away, one of Kakashi's clones was crouching on a tree branch, watching his two students dig a small grave for a dead bird. The clone couldn't quite decide what his true self would think of this once he saw, because the clone didn't know what to think of it either. He'd wanted to see those children kill, not perform a burial ceremony for a bird. Yet at least he could see the two students bond, heard Naruto thank Naho for her help. And that was important too. It was important that Naruto had teammates in his life he could rely on. Especially after everything that had happened between them.
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Meanwhile Sasuke was set on not hunting anything smaller than himself. Kakashi had said this was no competition, but everything was. And everyone could hunt and kill a rabbit. But Sasuke wanted something more impressive.
Eventually, he stumbled upon a hind. She was tall, and seemed to be the best he would likely find. He wasn't sure how to best approach the animal, whether throwing a kunai would be enough, so he sneaked closer first. She was standing at a small lake, drinking.
It didn't take long until the hind noticed that she'd been chosen as prey, and with two big jumps, she vanished in the underbrush of the forest. Sasuke sped after her. From here on, he was hardly thinking about his actions anymore, just raced to not lose sight of the animal, jumping from branch to branch. It was hard to keep track with all the bushes and trees around them. This part of the forest was almost like a jungle.
He did manage to outspeed the animal in a fairly open area, to jump right in front of it. The hind immediately stopped and tried to turn while still on the run. Her hooves slid, and she fell. She was about to get back up again, continue to run, but Sasuke threw himself on top of her, a kunai in his hand.
They both wrestled as the animal tried to get away, and Sasuke tried to get a good enough grip to move the blade to its throat.
He was just about to cut when the hind screamed. It irritated him. He looked at it, somewhat shocked by the sudden sounds of agony. Their eyes met, and he could see the sheer terror in the black doe eyes. She was still struggling, still trying to break free from this predator trying to take her life. Sasuke's blade was so close to the throat, yet he couldn't cut. He froze.
The hind managed to throw him off, break free. And with more quick jumps, it was gone.
Sasuke was left shocked, stared after the animal with wide eyes. He got up again, rubbed the dirt of his trousers, and looked around to make sure no one had seen him. He then decided that a deer was still not impressive enough. He needed something bigger. Something that actually fought back. Not because he couldn't kill the hind, but because it had not been worth killing.
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Naho had returned to Sakura. She told her that Naruto had buried the bird, that he'd been sorry after all for falsely killing it. Sakura only nodded. They kept walking through the forest together, making sure neither of them would accidentally touch poisonous plants or stumble over covered roots.
Another clone of Kakashi watched them too, and he at least partially appreciated what he saw. Contrary to Naruto, the girls at least put some effort and preexisting knowledge into the task. They looked out for animal tracks, followed paths made by deer, and considered the flora around them when making decisions. With those two, he felt that students were actually taught at least something at the Academy. Yet Sakura's attitude worried him.
Eventually Naho stopped and moved a finger in front of her lips to signal Sakura to be silent. "Look, monkeys," she said, pointing up a tree.
There was a whole family of them sitting on top of some branches. Two of them were fighting over an apple, screeching at the other in an attempt to show dominance. The others seemed to just relax or clean themselves.
"You want to kill a monkey?" Sakura asked, unsure.
"Why not? You think they are too small and easy to kill?"
The monkeys were only slightly taller than squirrels. But Sakura hardly cared about that. She had heard that monkeys were intelligent beings. Some even called them the ancestors of humans. Killing an animal like that without any reason other than to please their teacher felt wrong. Too wrong.
Naho did not seem to have such thoughts at all though. Sakura didn't understand. Naho was the nice and friendly one out of the two. The reserved one who didn't even manage to voice her own opinion most of the time. Yet now her eyes were fixed on those animals, wondering how they could best catch and kill them. Sakura really didn't understand at all.
She stayed quiet. Something told her that she was the odd one out, not Naho. She knew that Naruto certainly did not have any problems killing, and neither would Sasuke have any. So all Sakura could do was to oblige and pretend to fit in. She'd have to kill one of those monkeys, with their cute button eyes, just this once and the exercise would be over.
Naho and Sakura sneaked closer to them. Some of the monkeys noticed them. They were alarmed, yet did not run just yet. Naho said it would be best to wait a bit, let the animals feel a false sense of security.
Once the monkeys started to relax again, and become less suspicious of the strangers on the ground, Naho decided it was time to strike. Both girls jumped up the tree towards the monkeys. And before those knew what was going on, they were in the middle of them. Naho grabbed one, pulled it towards her, and with a quick cut, slit the animal's throat. The animal was struggling still even after the blood started dripping. But it was quickly over and its limbs became numb.
Sakura caught one as well, but the movement of slitting its throat did not come as natural to her. She hesitated, and when her eyes fell on Naho and all the blood that left the small animal, she couldn't do it. Her own monkey fought and struggled against its captor. It bit into her hand, bringing her back to reality. She let go of it, startled by the sudden pain.
Naho grabbed Sakura's monkey before it could run off. "You have to grab them by the neck so they can't bite you," she explained, showing Sakura how to properly hold it.
Sakura grabbed it by the neck. The monkey kept trying to free itself, but it couldn't reach her hand anymore to bite, nor was it powerful enough to fight her off.
Naho waited, but Sakura didn't kill it.
Her grip loosened until the monkey managed to break away and run off. This time Naho was too slow to catch it again and it vanished in the tree crown.
"Oh, I guess it broke free," Sakura said, though her voice was barely convincing. Both girls knew that she could have killed it. If she wanted to.
"Are you alright? You look a bit pale," Naho said, still holding a dead monkey in her hands.
"Yes, it's just that… I don't really see the point in doing this. This is nonsense. We are killing animals for nothing.
"It's an exercise."
"A stupid exercise." Sakura put the kunai away. "You know what, I'm done. I'm not doing this."
"But Kakashi-sensei said-"
"I don't care," she interrupted her. "I'm not killing a living being for no reason at all." Her eyes dropped to the monkey, then found Naho's again. She frowned. "How can you do this? You didn't even blink."
"I grew up on a farm," Naho calmly said. "My father often slaughtered animals with me. He showed me how."
Sakura frowned, but she didn't say anything. She couldn't exactly blame her teammates for fulfilling the exercise their teacher had given him. Still it felt wrong. And for Sakura, this exercise was over.
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Sasuke eventually found the perfect animal. It was a tiger, lying on the branch of a big tree, cleaning its paws with slow licks. It had spotted him. Sasuke could tell from the way its eyes followed his movements. Yet the animal hardly seemed to care about him and calmly continued its grooming.
It would have been easy to get the first strike, start out with an advantage. Yet that wasn't what Sasuke wanted. He wanted a fight. So he approached the tiger, ready to taunt it into an attack. He threw a stone and hit the animal on the head. The tiger looked at him. It took another stone and it hissed at him.
Sasuke's eyes were locked on the tiger's, challenging it. The tiger slowly rose, accepting the challenge. It prowled around him before pouncing at him with one quick jump.
Sasuke dodged the swipe, but could feel the sharp blow of air on his skin. Each of its claws was larger than his longest finger, and he slowly started to realise that one wrong move would mean his death. Adrenaline started to rush through his veins. It was exactly what Sasuke wanted.
He waited for the next leap again. This time, he not only dodged but went for a counter-attack with a kunai, stabbing the animal somewhere between shoulder and neck. The blade got stuck in muscle and flesh, and before Sasuke could pull it out again, the tiger's paw came swiping at him again. He let go of the kunai, still the claws brushed his leg. It tore his pants, left deep scratches in his flesh, despite just barely touching him.
Sasuke threw shuriken. Some of them hit the side of the tiger. It only made him more furious.
The tiger lunged at him again. Sasuke was now awfully aware just how close he was to death. It made his heart beat so heavily it felt like it almost exploded. He stumbled to the side to dodge, fell down on the ground. The tiger quickly changed directions to follow its target.
Sasuke was staring at the tiger coming at him, claws first, mouth ripped open. He knew he was too slow to get up and dodge again. So he signed the one jutsu he knew by heart and breathed fire straight at the tiger.
The animal immediately abandoned its attack. It roared in pain, struggled against this new enemy that had no physical form. It's paws striked left, and right, but its fur was burning, and there was no way for the tiger to extinguish the flames.
It tried running, fleeing, but it could not flee from the flames.
Sasuke watched in horror. This wasn't what he had intended. He gasped for breath, but it felt like the air didn't reach his lungs. The tiger vanished in the undergrowth. Quickly he pulled himself up to chase it, despite feeling sick in his stomach.
He caught up to the tiger, who had stopped to lick a burned paw. The animal looked awful. It was not on fire anymore, yet a big part of its pelt and skin were burned off. Sasuke knew that he had gone too far to quit now, even though all he wanted to do was indeed run.
This time he did take advantage of the first strike, and while the tiger was still busy with its own wounds, threw himself at him, a kunai in hand. The animal still lashed out at him as Sasuke went for its throat. The cut was deep, it had to be, and after a few more moments of struggle, the tiger collapsed, its muscles went numb.
Sasuke wiped the blood away on his torn pants. His own leg was bleeding from a deep scratch, but he couldn't feel the pain. The scene before him was messy. So much more messy than he had anticipated. And the dead animal just kept bleeding and bleeding. Soon it lay in a whole lake of its own blood.
He couldn't look at it anymore. The feeling in his stomach overcame him and Sasuke had to throw up. He leaned against a tree while trying to spit out the feelings of disgust and guilt.
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Naruto was the first to return to Kakashi. He carried a dead rabbit with him. With a proud grin he showed the animal to Kakashi. The grin grew even bigger at the few words of praise his teacher directed his way and the fact that he'd been the first to complete the task.
Next were Naho and Sakura. Naho received the exact same words of praise. Sakura was scolded for failing. Or rather, for abandoning the exercise.
"I simply don't see the point in this exercise. I don't want to kill an animal for nothing," she tried to argue.
"If your mission is to kill a person, you don't ask questions. You don't wonder whether it is justified or not. You complete the mission. It is that simple. And that is all the reason you need," Kakashi replied, casually but firmly.
"You said this was not a mission but an exercise," Sakura quietly returned. She couldn't look into her teacher's eyes, hating the fact that he'd given them this task.
But it was the one answer that he accepted. Because that was what he had said. "Fine. You will still have to repeat this exercise tomorrow. And until you complete this, I will not teach any of you ninjutsu."
Sakura's head dropped. At least Sasuke wasn't there yet to blame her. Still Naruto moaned in disbelief and Sakura already felt the pressure her teammates would indirectly put on her.
Sasuke was the last to arrive. And he arrived late, right before dusk. Sakura had already wanted to go home, but Kakashi had made her stay. Training was not over until everyone of them had finished the exercise. So Sakura was sitting beneath a tree with a gloomy look on her face when Sasuke approached them. Naho was half-heartedly throwing kunai at a tree. Naruto was commenting on each throw.
When Sakura's eyes spotted Sasuke, she immediately rose and the disapproval on her face was replaced with worry.
"What happened?" she asked as she ran up to him to look at all the blood on his hands and clothes. She soon spotted the wound on his thigh, but when it was the only injury she could find, she realised that this was not all Sasuke's blood.
Still Sasuke arrived with no animal.
"Sasuke, where is the animal you hunted?"
"I couldn't carry it," Sasuke said in a low voice. "It was too heavy."
That surprised his three teammates, but not Kakashi, who had watched every second of Sasuke's fight with the tiger.
Together they entered the Forest of Death again and walked to the spot where Sasuke had killed the tiger. Naruto immediately felt a strong envy crawl up upon himself, that and a sense of failure for only delivering a rabbit.
But Sasuke not once boasted about his achievement. He could barely look at the dead animal. Neither could Sakura. She turned away as soon as her eyes lay sight upon it. And neither could she look at Sasuke anymore.
"Well done," Kakashi said, and this time, he truly meant it. Sasuke had experienced exactly what Kakashi had hoped they all would.
"Is this all for today?" Sasuke asked.
Their teacher dismissed them for the day, but Naho stopped Sasuke from immediately running off. "What about the animals?" she asked.
"What about them?" Kakashi asked.
"Well, what are we supposed to do with them?"
"Just leave them here. Some other animal will be grateful." Kakashi was well aware of the glances his students threw at him. Naho was irritated, Sakura outright bewildered. Even Sasuke had an unsure frown on his eyebrows. Only Naruto did not seem all too dismayed at the idea.
Still, Naruto asked, "Shouldn't we bury them?"
"Or we could bring them to the butcher. Monkey and tiger meat sells for a lot," Naho suggested.
"I said, throw them away," Kakashi repeated with a hint of sharpness in his usually calm voice. His eyes fell on Sakura, and added, specifically for her, "These animals are dead. You killed them. They won't care whether you bury them or not. Or whether you eat them to somehow make their death more meaningful. They are dead." They were all quiet now. "And Sakura, you will do this exercise again tomorrow. And the day after if necessary. Until you all understand that as a shinobi, you want to be the hunter."
Kakashi could feel that he did not make any friends that day. Three of his students seemed displeased with the day's exercise. And all three of them hurried off once he dismissed them again.
Naruto was the only one who stayed behind. With a pout and crossed arms he said, "I could have killed a tiger too. I simply couldn't find one."
This one was his only student who had not been fazed at all by the exercise he'd given them. Kakashi wondered whether the lack of empathy in Naruto was due to the Kyuubi's influence on him. Even though this sort of behaviour was desirable in a shinobi, it also troubled the teacher at the same time.
They walked back to Konoha together. Naruto was delighted about the fact that he'd receive additional training from his teacher even after everyone else was gone. A bright grin replaced the frown on his lips. He swung his arms left and right and marched next to his teacher humming a song.
"You actually seem to be in a good mood today," Kakashi noted.
The grin on Naruto's face grew even bigger and he leaned in to wrap his arms around Kakashi. "I'm just really happy you are my teacher, Kakashi-sensei!" They stopped for a moment as Naruto gave Kakashi a big hug. "You are much cooler than that Gai-sensei, you know? Sure, you are kind of lazy and always late, but at least you are not wearing a green jumpsuit."
"Uh, thanks. You can let go again." He used his index finger only to push Naruto away. "Guess you talked to Gai, huh?"
Naruto nodded. "I did, I did. But team 7 is my one and only team! You can believe that!" He nodded some more.
Kakashi looked bored, but he couldn't hold back a secret smile beneath his mask. Still, the fact that Naruto was completely unfazed by the exercise he had given them left the teacher worried.
They sat down in the outskirts of the village in a fairly quiet area. Should anything go utterly wrong during their training, he didn't want it to happen with villagers all around.
"So what is this special training, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked.
"We will work on controlling the ninetails. I don't want you to practice this alone anymore. You will only experiment with its chakra and the seal if I am around. Are we clear?"
Naruto nodded and his expression was more serious than usual. "So how are we doing this?" he asked, interested.
That Kakashi didn't know yet. "Have you tried meditating like I suggested?"
Naruto had. He hated it, yet it did help him get a feeling for that other chakra inside of him, especially after Hinata had helped to find it. But he didn't feel confident enough to draw on it. He wasn't even sure whether he'd find the exact source again without Byakugan eyes leading him. And even if he did find it, he wasn't sure what to do with it, how to control it. But maybe with Kakashi's help, he could.
"What about talking to it? Ever done that?" Kakashi casually asked. He pulled his Icha Icha book from his pockets, readying himself for one long evening with Naruto.
"What do you mean 'talk to it'?"
"I mean that exactly like I said it. Talk to it. The tailed beasts are supposed to be sentient beings. Who knows, maybe the ninetails can recommend you a good ramen shop."
Naruto crossed his arms as though his teacher suggested something offensive. "My old teachers always said I wasn't allowed to do that. They said the Kyuubi was a lying demon, so I must never listen to it. But it never talked to me anyways, so I thought they were just crazy."
"Well, I allow it. Talk to it, but don't let yourself get tricked into anything weird. And only while I am around."
Naruto grumbled while thinking. "And how do I talk to it?"
Kakashi shrugged. "All I know is that the previous Hokage could both talk to their beasts. That must have helped somehow, seeing how they were both able to at least partially control them."
Naruto sat down on the ground again, arms still crossed in front of him. He wasn't completely sure how to do this. But he sure as hell was gonna try. He had to, because team 7 was his team. And he wasn't going anywhere.
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The next day, Sakura found herself in the Forest of Death again. Her teammates were all present too, even though they had finished the exercise. And Kakashi had not given them a new one. Instead he stressed again that they were a team, and that one exercise was only done when all of them completed it.
Sakura felt pressured. She didn't want to let her team down. Fortunately, she'd also had a whole night to figure out the best outcome for this exercise. And so she came prepared. Kakashi had never said how the animals had to be killed and what tools to use.
So Sakura entered the Forest of Death with several traps for small rodents. Traps that killed. All she had to do was search for mouse holes, install the traps, and wait. A few hours later, she could present a dead mouse to her teacher.
Kakashi did not seem too pleased. "You did not kill it. The trap did," he noted.
"Naho also didn't kill her monkey then. The kunai did."
"Fine," Kakashi said again. "I'll consider it completed. But next time, I'll specify that I want the animals killed by snapping their necks. You should better prepare yourself for that." It was not a joke. Kakashi did plan on re-doing the exercise. Because killing had to be learned. And the feeling of ending a living being's life was something these kids had to get used to. Otherwise their first time might kill them. Part of him still hoped it would simply never come to that.
"Can we finally start with ninjutsu?" Sasuke urged. He hadn't said much while Sakura re-did her exercise, despite having to patiently sit still and wait. And now he was eager to leave this forest behind and move on.
"Sure," Kakashi said. "You guys go ahead back to Konoha. I'll catch up to you."
A minute later, Naruto was chatting with Naho, discussing where to go for lunch when Kakashi stopped Sakura. She was wearing a gloomy look on her face.
"You seem upset with me," he noted. "I hope you are aware that killing is part of the life you've chosen."
"Killing an animal is not like killing a human."
"You are right. The latter is a lot harder."
Sakura frowned. "What if I want to specialise in gathering intel or spying? Or even become a medic-nin."
"Even then killing will be part of it. You are still a shinobi. What will you do if you are out on the field as a medic and your team gets attacked. Sit back and wait until they are gone and you can start healing your wounded teammates? Or even worse, what if there is another war?"
Sakura's head dropped. "I know, sensei. I always thought that once you are a shinobi, killing would just come naturally. At least that's how they made it sound like in the Academy."
"It will, eventually," he told her. "But you'll have to keep practicing for that to happen. And once you find yourself in a situation of life and death, trust your instincts, not your brain."
Sakura nodded, though he wasn't quite sure she understood. They walked back to Konoha together, all five of them, hoping that the day they would first be directly confronted with killing was still far away. To kill did not come naturally. Yet for a shinobi, to kill could mean to live.
.
.
.
Kakashi never showed up at the training ground in Konoha as promised. He roamed the streets instead, and ended up at the graveyard. He spent some time there until eventually finding himself at home again, in his bed. Somehow he didn't feel like going back to his students. He'd spent all of the prior day with them, and then stayed with Naruto until late into the night. He needed a break. And his students surely could wait another day to start their ninjutsu training.
It was still bright and sunny outside, but Kakashi couldn't see. The blinds were closed. His eyes focused on the dark ceiling. His right hand was reaching into the nothingness as his mind tried to recount all the faces of the people he had killed with that very hand.