Darling Pretty

Just like a castaway
Lost upon an endless sea
I saw you far away
Come to rescue me

Cast away the chains, darling pretty
Cast away the chains, away behind
Take away my pain, my darling pretty
And the chains that once were yours and mine

There will come a day, darling pretty
There will come a day when hearts can fly
Love will find a way, my darling pretty
Find a heaven for you and I

Mark Knopfler

Kasumi watched the three sleeping genins with a slight smile. They had fought through exhaustion to stay awake long enough to hear the end of her story but, almost at the last word, each had finally lost that battle and succumbed to slumber. Now they lay sprawled in a tangle of arms and legs amid the sleeping bags. Like puppies in a basket, Kasumi thought. Sakura had her head on Naruto's back, and her legs intertwined with Sasuke's, who was in danger of being kicked in the head by Naruto. They curled together as though it were the most natural thing in the world, their daytime squabbles forgotten in the comforting nearness of their friends.

Even in the dark, she could sense Kakashi's wakefulness. His silhouette inclined its head towards the door of the tent, and she followed him outside into the soft rain, moving as quietly as she could so as not to wake the three children.

"We'll leave them there to sleep, yes?" she said quietly. With the dark and his mask, she couldn't make out his expression; his single visible eye was only a dark hole in his face. "And now you want to know how I became a jonin."

"Ah, well…" He rubbed his hair in that way he had, which Kasumi found so cute, and she smiled to think that she had guessed his thoughts so accurately.

"It isn't nearly as interesting," Kasumi warned, as she led the way to the other tent. He shrugged, and moved to sit on Sakura's sleeping bag.

"Oh no you don't," Kasumi said firmly. Kakashi paused, obviously unsure what she meant. Kasumi held her hand out, palm towards him, a few inches from his chest, and called the water in his clothes out into a ball in her hand. "It wouldn't be fair for you to make a mess of Sakura's things." She dropped the ball of water outside the tent. "Now you can sit down," she told him, doing her best to remain firm when he was looking at her with that sweet, slightly bewildered expression. He dropped onto Sakura's laid-out sleeping bag, settling himself back onto his elbows.

Is he trying to be sexy, stretching out like that? Damn, but he's succeeding.

You get dumber every day.

It must be your fault.

Or his, the dragon suggested wickedly.

"It isn't hard for a kunoichi to become a jonin in the Water Country," Kasumi began once she'd settled herself on her own sleeping bag. "We aren't really expected to amount to much. If a kunoichi passes the chuunin exam, she's practically guaranteed to become a jonin within a couple of years."

"So they all…?"

"No. It they're content to wait for five or ten years as genin, they can become jonin without even becoming chuunin. I told you, not much is expected of us. For a man to become a jonin in the Water Country requires that he complete a dozen A-rank missions and kill at least five people. A kunoichi chuunin needs only half a dozen B-rank and a single kill." Kakashi's gaze was flat, neither condemning nor approving. Just accepting that this was her story. I suppose he already knows at least part of this.

"When we returned to the village after the exam, I was required to tell the Council of Elders what happened to my teammates."

"You told the truth."

"Of course. Kakashi, I grew up in the Bloody Mist Village. It didn't matter to them that I had killed my teammates: all that mattered was that I had killed as a shinobi. The records don't show who I killed - Mizokage would have tried a lot harder to kill me if he had known, I'm sure - only that I had."

"That's it?" Still no emotion in his voice.

Kasumi sighed. "If it had been any harder, I doubt Kisame-senpai would have brought only one of his Akatsuki friends. He was the senior jonin who reviewed the case of my kills." She knew that to Kakashi, and the others of the Leaf Village, the boys were more than just kills, but she had grown up in the Bloody Mist, and sometimes training can overcome natural compassion, if it goes on for long enough. It didn't help that, to Ryuu, the boys hardly even merited the status of kills: they were just two more dead, and he had never really come to terms with her insistence on remembering them. "If there was any indication that the boys had fought back, that I'd actually defeated another shinobi, I'd probably have the whole of Akatsuki chasing me right now."

His touch on her hand was light and soft. This would be so much easier if one of you would just break down and tell the other, Ryuu commented acidly.

What would you know about it? she fired back.

"I suppose you'll need your pajamas," she said to change the subject. She couldn't bring herself to look at him, and felt her cheeks flame so red that she was sure he must have been able to see it, even in the dark.

"I'll get them." He slipped out, back into the rain. While he was gone, Kasumi changed quickly into her own pajamas. They were the simple, serviceable, unisex grey pajamas that everyone in the orphans' halls at Hidden Mist had been given, although rather worn and too short in the sleeve and leg. They had been second hand when she got them, and almost too short, but in all her years since leaving the village she had never bothered to replace them.

She fought to repress the irrational fear of what Kakashi would think when he saw her in them. They were not nearly as revealing as, for instance, the kunoichi dress she wore every day - provocative was the word she generally heard in connection to that stupid garment - but despite that, she felt more naked than normal. Perhaps it was because, however ridiculous the garment was, the dress was the garb of a ninja whereas these… were just pajamas. She lay on her side in her sleeping bag, staring at the dark tent wall.

There wasn't a sound, a poof of smoke, anything; Kakashi was just suddenly behind her, a solid, warm presence that she found herself trusting implicitly. But how… "That jutsu… the Yellow Flash…?"

"Was my teacher," he confirmed, soft amusement coloring his voice. She tried to turn over and look him in the eye, intending to tell him in no uncertain terms what a bad idea it was to sneak up behind someone like that - especially someone with a psychopathic dragon living in their head, kicking up a fuss that anyone would dream of touching his little girl without his approval - but his strong arm wrapped around her stomach and held her in place. His other arm slid behind her head, his fingers gently moving her hair out of the way. She slipped her fingers between his where they rested against her stomach.

She felt him shift, and he laid his cheek on top of hers. Instead of the fabric she had expected to feel there was only skin, smooth and soft along a hard jaw line. Tendrils of smoky-white hair, soft as down, brushed across her forehead.

She gave his fingers a squeeze, and his arm tightened in answer, pulling her close to him and holding her tightly. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, a soft, tender kiss that was at once thrilling and soothing. "Go to sleep, Kasumi-hime," he whispered.

And she did, content to be close to him and trust him to worry about the next day, and how they would all get through it alive.