trigger warning: contains mentions and thoughts of suicide.
roku.
KAKASHI ROSE WITH the sun, even if he didn't explicitly roll out of bed and face his reflection in the mirror. It was more difficult for him to do these days, to look upon the reminders of his father, or what little he could recall of him—white hair, the same squared off jawline, the faintest crinkling of the corners of his eyes when his lips pulled tight in distaste—and it always left him feeling a little more than disgusted with himself each time, digging the pit in his stomach deeper and deeper with every new dawn that greeted him. He, with every quiet birthday that passed, grew more understanding of his father's decision to end it all and leave him stranded in a world that would rather see him dead than living happily in it. It would tempt him as he laid in his bed, staring at the rough, uneven surface of his bedroom ceiling, to fish the kunai out from under his pillow and drag the edge of the blade down his wrist to the point that there would be no saving him.
It was a niggling thought, one that never quite escaped him.
A thought that was never so invasive, so seductive as it was when he was in battle.
It wouldn't take much. A slip of the foot here; a brief flicker of distraction there; a well-aimed dodge into a kunai, just enough to nick his femoral artery; a tiny mistake made in the heat of the moment, earning him a sword through the belly and severing his spine. It tortured him, day and night, the potential deaths he could have—torture that, in the end, felt slightly more like relief when he would return to Konoha, empty and devoid of any reason to truly come back, and know that, if he so chose, he could end it if he truly wanted to.
That, if he wanted, it would take no more than a slip of the wrist to end his torment.
But lately, as most things were wont to do, a pair of green eyes would flash through his mind when his fingers would graze against the cool metal kunai beside his head. He had never gotten farther than entertaining the idle thought until two days ago, when Sakura's exile into the War Ops had gnawed a gaping hole in his gut and made his heart shrivel up a size smaller than it had been before. He would toy with the weapon, so small and slender and yet deadly, twirling it around his fingers with the cylindrical hole at the end, tying and untying the bindings at the hilt, watching the rays of dawn bounce of the black metal and onto his face, where it felt warmest and yet somehow all the more colder. He had even taken to sliding it into his pocket when he went to peruse the missions board for something to do that might take him close to Amegakure, gripping it to the point where his knuckles were white when he found nothing remotely close to his former student's destination, if only to give him an excuse to see her—to make sure she hadn't bled out in the forest and died alone, as teary-eyed as Sai claimed she had been, with nothing but abandonment and betrayal being her last thoughts as she faded from the world.
Nothing, not even his failure to save Sasuke from himself, hurt quite as badly as how royally he had failed Sakura Haruno. Because in the end, she had forgiven him, had let him help her before she was thrown to the wolves; and that forgiveness was something he didn't deserve.
And even still, she kept him from taking the final step, even if it was only in his mind. He could envision what she would say to him, if she had ever caught him doing it before, as if it had actually happened.
"What do you think you're doing?!" She would say, ripping the kunai out of his hand before he could blink. When words would inevitably fail him, she would slap him, that ferocious backhand that felt ten times worse than if it had been aimed at his shoulder or chest. "Idiot! I should report you and haul you into Tsunade-shishou's office!"
She would not, in the end, take him to Tsunade's office. He imagined she would force him to attend therapy sessions instead, force him off of the active duty roster, and make him face the demons that made him such an awful man in the first place. Because Kakashi Hatake—he didn't face demons. He squared them all away in their neat little boxes, preferably in the back of his mind, where he could ignore them and do what needed to be done, because the deceptively cruel voice in his head was never done mocking him when there was death to be dealt.
He had, foolishly, named that particular demon Obito, in a fit of sleep deprivation and in the midst of a mild psychotic break. On the battlefield, it didn't seem to matter much, but his mind tore eagerly at the leeway he gave it and so the name stuck, as did others, to torture him when he wasn't on the battlefield, drowning his sins in rivers of blood and tears.
Obito, Rin, Minato, and Sasuke—his demons currently added up to the ominous number of four, but he had a hunch, deep in the recesses of his mind, that he was on the fast track to adding a fifth.
What would he name that one, then? There was only one other name to add, and it made his heart drop to his feet every time the sweet, dulcet and taunting tones of Rin's voice plagued his thoughts.
Facing his reflection, in the end, seemed the least awful thing he could do to start the day.
With a tired sigh, Kakashi shoved the kunai back under his pillow and tore the blankets back. He felt an ache in his knees that came with a warning for bad weather, and the resounding pop pop as he rose to his feet only further cemented the day's weather outlook.
He shuffled his way into his bathroom—a modest thing, made up of a closet sized space occupied by a sink, a toilet, and a shower, the grout and tile stained pink with blood he had never managed to get out—and scratched at the stubble on his face. It would prick through his mask, something that bothered him once he had started growing facial hair, and so he picked up his straight razor from the corner of the sink. He didn't bother with looking for his shaving gel and instead wet his face from the faucet and began running the blade across the faint white whiskers. He ignored the sting when he became a little too aggressive, a droplet of blood running down his cheek and obscuring the mole in the corner of his mouth. When he finished, looking too much like Sakumo for his liking, he placed the straight razor, still bloody, back in its place on the sink, caught his own gaze in the mirror for half a second to notice the temptation there all too clearly, turned his head, and with two twists of the stained knobs on his shower, listened to the water rain down on the cheap plastic tub.
As he tossed his pajamas, a pair of ruined sweatpants cut off at the knee and a wife beater that had seen many better days, into the clothes hamper and stepped under the scalding spray—he grimaced at the heat, but it burned his thoughts away for a moment—a flash of pink caught his eye. Stark against the bloody stains in the grout, a fist sized knot of hair was stuck to the wall, a remnant of Sakura's time in his apartment. She'd washed her hair, minding his concern about the drain clogging easily, and what strands came loose from her scalp, clinging with blood and dirt and whatever else had been thrown at her on that walk to the Hokage Tower, she had slapped on the wall, perhaps intending to toss it in the trash, but ultimately forgetting in the face of her more obvious concerns.
It was like her and decidedly not, in many different ways, but he couldn't tear his eyes from it until the water went cold and he was forced to bathe under the freezing spray.
It was as Kakashi was drying his hair and reaching for the tangle of pink strands that there was a knock on his door—solid, even thunks, in a pattern he recognized. His hand fell to his side, the towel dropping to his feet, and he tugged on the pair of sweatpants he'd somehow left on the closed toilet lid, and darted to the front door.
In the back of his mind, he hoped it was something about Sakura. But when he opened the door to pale ANBU masks and dark uniforms, that hope, miniscule as it was, withered and died and felt like ash in his mouth.
"Kakashi Hatake," the ANBU member announced, reading from a scroll in his hands. He recognized the color of it, knew deep in his belly where this was going to go before the ANBU had even said the words. "Your status as ANBU has been reinstated. You will join a squadron as Captain and lead it as a four-man cell. Please report to the Hokage's office for further instruction."
Something foul rose in the back of Kakashi's throat as the ANBU vanished into the morning light. The scroll was left at his feet and he scooped it up, holding it at arm's length and shutting the door. There, displayed on paper to become permanently branded in his mind, were his new designation—he was no longer Hound, now, but Wolf—and the three people making up the rest of his team. Three people that were not Sakura, Naruto, or Sasuke.
Three people that he would, somehow, fail in some capacity.
He rolled the scroll closed and incinerated it before he could even look at the names. He didn't care; he would distance himself from them because nothing good ever came from getting too close to them. He would drag out what remained of his old personality—the cold ruthlessness that he thought had been stamped out by the relentless battle between his genin team and his determination—and ensure that history would not repeat itself.
He put on his uniform and was on his way to the Hokage Tower in little more than fifteen minutes. The streets were bare, still stagnant in the early morning hours, but he could see people milling about, preparing their stalls or tugging out racks of clothing for display. He stuck to the shadows of buildings as often as he could, but he could still feel their judgemental stares all the same, burning into his back as he passed them by. It was unavoidable; he was the pinhead of losing three of the strongest ninja Konoha had ever seen. Even if he wasn't the direct cause, which he knew he was—had to be, they would still blame him, because it had been up to him to guide and direct his students.
"Look how they ended up," he would hear the older women of the community sneer, their knitting needles clacking together like an endless chatter of blades. "We knew he was a monster back then, and now look. All of his students have gone or turned against us. We should have known better."
"Truly," another would agree, scowling at him as he sauntered by,"he should be ashamed."
"Shame," they would echo as he passed.
"Shame," they would chortle when he returned from missions.
"Shame," they laughed when he encountered them in the market.
"Shame," they hissed when he passed by now, readying their crop for the morning, spools of thread hidden away in their baskets. "Shame, shame, shame."
He ignored them, as he always did, but he couldn't mistake the fifth demon rising up in his mind, laughing, crooning,"Such a shame, such a shame."
When he entered Tsunade's office, it reeked of Sake, stale perfume, and freshly printed paper. Her desk was as messy as it ever was, piled high with various folders and documents, but she was surprisingly sober with not a cup of sake in sight despite the odor. Instead, a cup of coffee rested near her right hand, beside her pen, and she was perusing a document that he couldn't read through the back. She would have looked perfectly normal if the bags under her eyes hadn't grown so prominent, or the lines in her face becoming slightly more obvious than they had been previously. Slowly, the Hokage was beginning to look her age, and Kakashi relished in it with a smug streak.
"I'm sure you've gotten your notice," she said, not even deigning to look up at him from the paper she was reading. She took a sip of her coffee and grimaced, settling it a little farther to the corner of the desk. "Why are you here so early? I didn't expect to see you until noon."
Kakashi exhaled through his nose. It came off more as a sarcastic snort than anything else. "Why wouldn't I be? I have no more stray students to occupy my time, therefore I have nothing else to do in the meantime."
Other than debating the end of his own life, though, Tsunade likely wouldn't care much for that quip.
"Of course," she said, after a brief pause. Her grip on the paper tightened slightly. "Well. Your mission is on the top of that pile. You leave at sundown."
Sundown. He rolled the word around in his mind as he retrieved the file from where she had indicated, opening it up mindlessly. Faster than he could comprehend, his stomach sunk to his feet and began to tie itself in knots. Destination: Suna.
And far, far from Amegakure.
He closed it with a snap of the wings. He didn't need to read anything else about it.
"She would be very disappointed in you," Kakashi said, hatred boiling in his belly and crawling into his lungs like wicked fire. Hatred for the woman who had sentenced Sakura to virtual death. "More than disappointed—she would be crushed."
He watched her eyes narrow, her jaw tighten as she ground her teeth, readying the barbs she knew would strike him where it hurt the most. Before she could open her mouth, deliver them in a steady, unrelenting stream, he was gone, a flurry of leaves fluttering to the floor, the only indication he had ever been there.
Tsunade stared at that pile, clenched her fist, and smothered a despairing scream, because she knew he was right.
Kakashi read the file further in the safety of his home. He had locked his doors, shuttered his windows from the sun, and sank down onto the floor, resting his back against his threadbare couch and tapping his bare feet on the rug littered with dried blood stains and strands of Sakura's hair that had fallen loose while he had braided it.
Mission: Retrieve Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki at all costs. Alive or disabled.
Alive or disabled could go as far as broken legs or ripping control of their chakra from them entirely. Kakashi had had to learn that, when Sakura had been imprisoned for that very thing, and it made him sick to know it was going to be utilized on more than just the one student who might have benefitted from it in the first place. Instead, they had left her to rot in a cell, and then thrown her into a war where she would eventually either be killed or die from sepsis.
It made him angry. But even more, it made him terribly, terribly tired.
He scrubbed his face and, after a brief thought, summoned Pakkun. He appeared in a brief flash of smoke and nothing more, but made himself comfortable on the couch besides.
"So, boss, what's the mission?" The pug peered at the open manila file, his large eyes widening slightly. "Oh."
"Right, 'Oh'." He closed the file and tossed it across the room, watching it slip under a chair occupied by dust. Pakkun watched it go, dropping his head. "I'll need your help to find them. If there's anything in Suna to track them with, besides."
Pakkun huffed knowingly. "In Suna and far from Ame. Don't look at me like that, I know more than you think."
"I forget Tsume talks while dealing with you all," Kakashi scowled. He got to his feet and brushed off his pants, collapsing onto the couch with a sigh. "I can't help Sakura from Suna. It's going to take Ino and Sai everything they have just to figure out where she's going."
"I… Pink—Sakura-san, I don't know if I can't understand her. Or forgive her." Pakkun watched as Kakashi stiffened, closing his hand into a tight fist. "The other ninken talk, you know, about her. About what she did to an Inuzuka kid. Nearly tore him right in half."
"Pakkun…" he whispered warningly.
"What I'm saying is," the pug shifted nervously,"is that she's dangerous, Kakashi. And I don't trust her."
The ninken watched as something dark crawled over his summoner's face, a slight narrowing of his eyes.
"Then it doesn't matter if you don't trust her." Kakashi stood and walked to the kitchen counter, picking up an apple with a rotten spot on its side. He bit into it anyway. "I trust her. Nothing else matters."
a/n: hi! if you like werewolves, forbidden relationships, and a/b/o dynamics (albeit very vague ones), then check out my kakashi/sakura fic, bleed for me! i'd very much appreciate it if you checked it out, it's my first foray into somewhat contemporary romance (if that's the right term). thank you all for the reviews and likes so far, I love you all! :) expect the next chapter sometime at the end of this week!
