Hey People!
Here it is: the third chapter of The Path. This chapter is a lot shorter than the previous one (which is by far the longest of the story so far). By comparison, this one is more of a teaser than a real chapter, but it is a chapter that I absolutely loved writing and that's super important to the story.
General warnings for the story apply : it is a slow story, with lots of character development and exploration. It is an adult story, with mentions of violence, of drama, tragedy, lots of swearing and there might even be some skin later on (minor references, more like). Also, and I think this is the most important warning of all (from the feedback I'm getting): there are a lot of FEELS in this story. We'll be getting right into them. I'm going to make you emotional.
You have now been warned.
I want to thank you all for your awesome support and feedback. I am truly amazed that this story and the whole "Glimpse of Another Path" series are getting so much love. It is so great!
And as always, a massive thanks to White-Witch-Sakura, who's my glorious and amazing Beta reader for this. I really enjoy our conversations and tossing ideas around with you. And you are great person as well, which is just the cherry on top!
Celohei out!
[No time skip with previous chapter]
Chapter 3
Dog sighed after closing the door on Minato and Naruto. What had just happened? He was very confused. He had been warned that something might happen to Naruto, but knowing and living it were two different things.
He remembered the day, so many years ago, when Minato had pulled him apart while Kushina was putting 4 years old Naruto to sleep after a family dinner. Minato had been unusually subdued over dinner. Kakashi hadn't been surprised when his Hokage had asked him to follow him into his study. He had been surprised when instead of telling him about an imminent threat to the village, the blond man had looked him in the eyes and very seriously asked him if he loved Naruto.
Kakashi, the emotionally stunted teenager that he was at the time, had almost bolted straight out of the room. Only the pleading in Minato's eyes had stayed him. Instead of lashing out at Minato like his instinct told him to do, Kakashi actually thought about the question. Did he love Naruto?
Honestly, he had wanted to say "no", to tell Minato that love was a weakness and irrelevant in his line of work. That Minato shouldn't worry because Dog would protect Naruto whatever happened. It was his duty. But Minato hadn't asked him as his Hokage. He hadn't asked Dog, he'd asked Kakashi.
And the truth was that as much as Kakashi had wanted to trash against it, fighting it tooth and nails, he did. Kakashi loved Naruto. Like he had never loved anyone before. Naruto was his lifeline.
Four years before that evening, just a couple hours after coming into the world, the small child had gripped onto Kakashi's hand and squeezed. The baby had fallen asleep a few minutes later, impossibly hot and tiny hand tightly holding onto two of Kakashi's fingers, unwilling to let go.
Kakashi had frozen on the spot. Him, ANBU Dog, Kakashi Hatake, Copy Nin, Sharingan no Kakashi, frozen in the hand of a newborn baby.
Naruto had slept for two hours, in the tiny baby bed quickly installed for him in the Hokage office, completely ignoring the goings of shinobis dealing with the aftermaths of the attack.
Kakashi had not moved a muscle during those two hours. His back had been turned to the office, exposing him to anyone coming to see the Hokage. He had felt so exposed. It had taken absolutely every ounce of control he had over his body not to turn around. But his eyes, both of them, red and black, had been unable to leave the small sleeping thing clinging onto his fingers and rooting him on the spot.
For two hours, Kakashi had barely been able to breathe. At first it had been because of the panic coursing through his veins. Slowly, unnoticed by him, Kakashi had stopped shaking. Slowly, unnoticed by him, Minato had smiled and gone back to his task of organizing the village that was still on high alert. Nothing else had happened. No big epiphany, no world shifting feeling. Nothing but the slow rise and fall of a tiny chest and the feel of warmth at the tip of two of his fingers.
Kakashi had not intended to love Naruto. Actually, he had had every intention never to get attached to anyone ever again. Not anymore.
Naruto never gave him a choice.
The realization had slapped Kakashi in the face when one day, he had stumbled into the Namikaze household late at night. He had just finished a mission that had taken too much of him and destroyed a part of what was left. He had stumbled into the house, completely unaware that his body had carried him there instead of his own apartment. He had walked through the door, body shaking and skin crawling with the blood he could feel drying on his arms. He had completely ignored the gasps and the arms reaching out for him when Minato and Kushina had entered the room in reaction to his presence.
Kakashi's whole attention had solely been on a dark-green pajama clad toddler crawling on the floor of the living room, clearly unrepentant about his curfew being way past. Naruto had lifted his head to him instantly. Kakashi had taken a couple of very slow and careful steps in his direction. His body had refused to carry him any further and he had let himself fall on his knees. Naruto had forced his tiny body to stand and had wobbled to him, determination telegraphed in his clumsy movements. His blue eyes had not wavered from Kakashi's even as he fell into the teenager's arms.
Naruto had looked up and his little hands had reached up to Kakashi's face. The warmth of them had seeped through his mask, into his cheeks and straight into his soul. The bright blue eyes had not been questioning. They had just pierced him right through. They had been full of acceptance. Nothing else. In that moment, Kakashi had broken.
There had been nothing conscious in those bright blue eyes, nothing intentional. Naruto had simply held onto him with his hands like he had done the day of his birth, silently screaming at Kakashi that he existed. Kakashi's body had held the toddler in a tight embrace as he sobbed and cried and wept.
Kakashi had not been aware of Kushina reaching for Minato's hand as her own heart broke over Kakashi's pain. He hadn't been aware of the silent tears gliding down his teacher's face as he looked at his two sons on the floor. Kakashi had not been aware of the time passing as he simply emptied his soul. He'd been unaware of the wave of exhaustion overwhelming him and Naruto when the tears had stopped. He'd been unaware of Minato carrying him onto the futon Kushina had just silently installed for him next to Naruto's small bed.
So a few years later, on that night, when Minato asked him in his home study if he loved Naruto, Kakashi had had to admit that despite having fought it tooth and nails, yes, he did love Naruto.
"-Yes," he had said. "I do, sensei. I don't know what I would do without him," he had admitted in an unprecedented moment of vulnerability.
"-Even if he changes one day?
-Naruto will always be Naruto, sensei, no matter what."
Minato must have understood what Kakashi had meant because he had nodded. Very seriously, he had explained to Kakashi that he suspected Naruto might one day change for no apparent reason. Kakashi had not really understood what his teacher had meant.
Years had passed and Naruto had never changed. Minato had the "Naruto might change" talk with a handful of other people. People he trusted completely. Kakashi never really understood what it was all about. Until today.
Until he had been standing at the edge of the outermost barrier surrounding Konoha, facing a man who had looked so much like his brother and yet carried himself like a stranger unsure of what he would be faced with.
His nose told him this was his Naru, the little brother who had fought his way into his life and forced him to cling to the remains of his own shattered heart. Kakashi knew without a doubt that this was him. Yet, he smelled different.
Kakashi could smell the pain coursing through his brother's body. He could smell the strain hiding the physical pain caused him. He could also smell the myriad of emotions rolling off of him: sadness, doubts, anger, despair. But most of all, Kakashi could smell something he absolutely hated smelling on his precious person.
Naruto reeked of blood and smoke and death. Kakashi had almost choked on it when they had appeared in the small room. Opening the door when his teammates had left had been a relief, if short lived. Something very bad had happened to his brother on his long mission.
It took all of Kakashi's professionalism to walk away from the room and not fuss over him like he wanted to do. Kakashi was on the clock. He was ANBU Captain Dog. And Dog would have to wait to get his answers. Dog could not worry over his brother. Dog did not have a brother.
Kakashi did. But he knew he would have to wait until they were behind the closed door of their shared apartment to make sure Naru was all right.
As soon as Dog made it out of the small building Panther appeared next to him. Dog raised his hand, cutting him off before he could start speaking. They met with the others outside a few seconds later. Spider and Sparrow stood up straight next to him.
"-Spider?
-All clear, no one around except the patrol. We've informed the jounin in charge of this outpost that we've commandeered it for the time being. They're conducting a regular patrol and should be back in about three hours.
-Cool. Now, Dog, tell us everything!
-No.
-Come on, man! Don't be a dick! Naru-chan is different."
Dog sighed. When Panther adopted that particularly whining tone, there was no getting out of it. Sparrow and Spider both seemed just as curious, if not as open about it.
"-Hokage-sama warned us this might happen. I know he told you the same thing he told me.
-That Naru-chan might one day be different but still the same… Yeah yeah but tell us! You were in there with them a bit longer. What's he like?
-Different, and the same.
-Don't be a smart ass. I know he's different." Panther's voice became more serious. "He's… more intense.
-I had never heard Namikaze-sama use that tone before.
-His chakra was peculiar.
-Sparrow is right. What was that about?
-Stop it. I will not have you gossiping about Naruto. This stops right now. We were warned this might happen. Obviously, Hokage-sama was expecting something like this. And he's not worried. We'll be debriefed when we're meant to be. And if we're not, then it's nothing for us to worry about.
-Hai hai, Capt'n."
The three ANBU scattered around the outpost, keeping watch. Kakashi was glad they were out in the open. His team would have never given up the interrogation in the village. Out here, at least they were in mission mode.
He could feel Panther's and Sparrow's curiosity and worry. He knew they both loved Naruto as family. Seeing him hurt always rattled them. Spider, as the newest addition to the team, remained more professional about this. He was not as close to Naruto as the others. Kakashi knew that even outside of his function as Hokage guard, the younger man was only a distant acquaintance of the blonde's.
Kakashi focused on the chakra signatures he could feel under him, through the roof. Minato would regularly pulse a minute amount of chakra, indicating that everything was all right. Kakashi could vaguely feel the warmth of Naruto's chakra next to his sensei's, but nothing more. Naruto's chakra had always felt warm to him. Like a ray of sunshine in the morning.
The younger blond man was very good at masking his presence when on a mission, but right now, his chakra felt slightly off. Kakashi had barely been able to feel it when in close proximity to the blonde, after he had managed to reign it in. The fact that Naruto had been able to mask his chakra so well was a piece of the new puzzle Kakashi neatly put aside to ponder on later.
Kakashi didn't know exactly what had happened in the room before, but he could guess it was the backlash of a powerful technique his little brother was still dealing with. Kakashi didn't know the details of the mission Naruto had been on. Only that it was a long and difficult one. Obviously, something had happened while on the mission that had affected Naruto as well as his chakra. The absolute pain he had seen in the bright blue eyes had made Kakashi's heart tightened in his chest. What had Naruto seen that he had hugged him so tightly?
"You're alive."
The wonder and relief in those words had been like a slap in the face.
"You lost him. Your Kakashi."
What had Minato been talking about? And someone named Tobi, and a fight… Kakashi did not understand any of it.
He sighed one more time. He needed to be Dog now, no matter how hard it was and how much he wanted to be Kakashi. He knew Minato would explain things to him later. And he knew Naruto must be all right, otherwise they would have been rushing him back to Konoha proper. But still, seeing Naruto in pain was always something Kakashi tried to avoid at all cost. Naruto was meant to be happy.
