Chapter 16

Kakashi sighs as he rubs his silver hair with both hands. IA had been all over him for the past week after the incident at the warehouse. They apparently didn't like the idea of a dirty cop in their police force. Hell, Kakashi didn't like the idea of a dirty cop in his department, but he apparently had one.

For the last week days, the IA had interrogated everyone in the K-9 unit about Kin. Everyone knew she was ambitious and spent more time with her dog than people, but none of them had ever thought she was dirty, and, according to Naruto's wire tap, she had been from the start.

With her confession, the Major Crimes devision could now mount a more solid investigation on Orochimaru, but the king pin had a mountain of lawyers for them to leap through. They had to get through them before they even thought about talking to the snake. He just hoped Asuma could keep up.

At the moment, Kakashi was only concerned about one thing. Naruto. Since the raid and the loss of his canine partner, Naruto had been in a state of depression. Sakura had been at his house a few times a day, trying to get him to come out and talk or even go to the dog park, but the man refused to leave his home.

The IA had wanted to interview Naruto, but Kakashi had adamantly refused to allow them into the young man's home. The man had lost his partner. He did not need to be reminded of it so soon.

Naruto had always been an emotional and sensitive child. He quickly formed bonds with people and animals as soon as meeting them, even to the most stubborn of people. Over the past six months, he had seen how close he became to Kurogane, and how close Kurogane had came to him.

Kakashi remembered watching the two work together for the first time. He wasn't entirely convinced an ex-fight dog would make a good police do. It wasn't realistic. Traditionally, police dogs were trained from the time they were six weeks old to hunt and detect bombs, drugs and other materials. He didn't think an ex-fight dog could be trained to detect any of those in only a couple of months.

But like always, Naruto proved him wrong. Somehow, in just a month and half, he turned an ex-fight dog into a search dog.

Kakashi didn't know what it was, but there was something about the dog that had made him suspicious. He didn't act like a dog should. Jump around at play, running after toys or even play with the other dogs. Instead, he stayed by Naruto's side and watched. Just watched. Like it was studying everything around him and was decided on whether to trust them or not. In all of Kakashi's years of dealing with dogs, he had never met one that had that much level of intelligence.

A knock on the door pulled Kakashi from his thoughts and he looked up to see Asuma standing in his doorway. Since Orochimaru was a Major Crimes case, Asuma took over the case and Kakashi couldn't have been happier. Give him minor drug dealers and dog fights any day.

"I'm about to interrogate Tsuchi," he said. "Want to watch?"

"Yes," said Kakashi. Standing, he followed Asuma toward the interrogation room.

Asuma and Kakashi had been in the same academy class and Asuma had been there when Kakashi had lost his first partner and best friend. It was strange to admit that Kakashi had friends inside the police department, and there were times that he was glad he did.

The interrogation room looked like any other. A single table with a set of four chairs on iether side with a video camera recording everything that went on in the room. Sitting in two of the four chairs was Kin Tsuchi and her lawyer.

Asuma and Kakashi walked in and Asuma sat down in one of the two remaining chairs, dropping a file on the table. Kakashi stood in the corner, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, observing his former subordinate.

"Taka Asano," said the lawyer. "I'll be defending Lieutenant Tsuchi."

"It's just Tsuchi," said Asuma. "She had been stripped of her badge when she was arrested."

"An arrest I'll prove to be done under false assumptions," said Asano.

"We have her confession on tape in front of an undercover officer," said Asuma. "There is nothing to assume."

"A confession made under duress. Inadmissible."

"What's not is the ballistics that came back from the body of a K-9 dog she shot," said Asuma pulling out a photograph of Kurogane.

Kakashi had to look away. He had been on of the first on scene after he heard the gunshots. Kin was unconcious with her hands cuffed behind her back as Naruto cried over Kurogane's body. The young man kept shaking the dog, begging him to wake up, but he never did. It took three officers to pull Naruto way so they could finish processing the scene.

"We have more than enough evidence to put you away, Kin," said Asuma. "Your activities amongst Orochimaru's group. Your 'brothers', Dosu and Zaku, one's dead and the other is in jail."

He leans against the table and looks Kin in the eye as she glares at him.

"Is this how Orochimaru awards your loyalty? A week in jail and a court appointed defender."

"Don't answer him," said Asano. "You have no proof that Tsuchi-san has had any interaction with Orochimaru."

Asuma pulled out papers from the folder.

"At the age of fourteen, Tsuchi Kin was admitted into an orphanage found and funded by Orochimaru, entered a prestigious school and college under a scholarship from a group Orochimaru found. On tape, she admitted to being all but adopted by Orochimaru and started working for him at a young age. As you can see, there is enough proof to show that they have interacted."

Kakashi watched silently. It was speculated that Orochimaru recruited orphans from the orphan he found and funded. When it opened, he made uplifting claims that he didn't want another child living on the streets as he did scrounging for food. It made Orochimaru a pillar in the community, but most of the police force and government officials know the truth behind the rise of his empire.

Oorchimaru may have started out an orphaned street rat, but he quickly grew in power. What background they could gather of him showed that he had joined a drug gang at the age of fifteen and rose to power from there. There, on the street, he finished his education, got a college degree and went into real estate. His empire quickly grew, and most of the police department thought by less than legal means.

"Orochimaru is a generous citizen of the community," said Asano.

"Orochimaru recruits orphans and makes them his lackeys," said Asuma. "He never gets his hands dirty. When they become useless, he throws them away. Like trash."

Kin explodes, jumping out of her chair and throwing her hands on the table.

"How dare you make these assumption about Orochimaru-sama!" she yelled. "Orochimaru-sama is the most generous man in the world!"

"A generous man that makes him money off of the suffering of others," said Kakashi, speaking for the first time. Everyone turned to him in shock, but he didn't let it phaze him. "You know how his operations works. The women that have gone missing in his human trafficking rings, the drugs he distributes and the assassins he dispatches for the right price. Why help him for no gain of your own?"

"I do gain from him!" yelled Kin. "I'm a high ranking official in his operation. He'll reward me once he sets me free!"

"Which will never happen, I'm afraid," said Kakashi. "You've been arrest for multiple crimes, one of which is attempted murder. Life in prison will seem like a pity sentence compared to what waits you."

Asuma put the photographs and papers back into the file, stood and both and Kakashi walked out. Kin was left screeching in the room as her public defender was left to deal with the aftermath.

"Sad when the young is seduced by a snake's venom," said Asuma.

"It's hardly a seduction when the capacity of evil is already there," said Kakashi.

"You know he's going to get her to plead the Stockholm defense," said Asuma reaching for a pack of cigarettes and putting on in his mouth.

"This is entire case is Stockholm," said Kakashi eyeing his friend as he was about to light up. "You know you can't smoke that here."

Asuma groans and takes the cigarette out.

"Wife wants me to quit too," he said. He puts the cigarette pack away and pulls out a pack of gum. "Not as easy as it looks."

"I wouldn't know," said Kakashi as Sakura runs up to him.

"Kakshi-sensei, I'm worried about Naruto," she said. "He hasn't come out of his house for three days and gave Kyuubi to Kiba. I'm afraid he's killed himself."

Kakashi sighs sadly.

"I don't think he did," said Kakashi. "I'll go talk to him."

"Are you sure?" asked Sakura. "I've been yelling through his door for a week and even I haven't been able to get him to talk."

"I got it," said Kakashi. He turned to Asuma. "Call Iruka to take Pakun home for me?"

"Got it," said Asuma.

Kakashi walked out of the precinct. Getting in his car, he drove to the home Naruto had once shared with his mother, that Kushina shared with Minato.

Kakashi had been twelve when he first meet Minato. In and out of three juvenile detention facilities, and the son of a drug ringleader, Kakashi was expected to live a life of crime. Kakashi half believed it himself and hated that he wasn't strong enough to change anything.

Then Minato came. Strolling through the juvie yard and picked Kakashi from a group of boys lounging in the courtyard. Kakashi was keptcal, of course, but Minato had worn down the boy's walls and took Kakashi under his wing. He taught Kakashi how to not just be a man, but a good one. He taught Kakshi self-defense against his father's gang, and helped Kakashi with schoolwork will in juvie. He had been in for two years until he was released and became a ward of the state.

He had only been out a week when Minato died during a gang shoot out. He met Kushina during the funeral, and later Naruto when he walked into the precinct and met the trouble making seven year old.

Like Minato, Kakashi took Naruto under his wing, and even now, he hoped that he made a good man out of the boy.

Walking up to the house, Kakashi knocked loudly on the door. There was no answer. Walking down to the the porch, he reached under the hedge and pulled out a fake rock and took the key from inside. Walking back to the door, he inserted the key into the lock and opened the door.

The place looked normal, except for the pile of mail in front of the door, until he looked in the kitchen. Used plates and food containers were in the sink, on the counter and the table. Kakashi didn't want to guess on the trash.

Hearing voices, he walked in to see the television on a talk show, something he knows Naruto hates, and wrinkled his nose against the subtle smell.

"Have you bathed at all during your pity party, Naruto?" he asked.

There was a rustling on the couch, and Naruto looks at his teacher over the back of the couch.

"Kakashi-sensei?" he said in surprised confusion. "What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you're not dead, obviously." He walks over to the young man and grabbed him by the arm. "Come on."

He steered Naruto toward the stairs.

"What are you doing?!"

"Getting you to bath, obviously," said Kakashi. "Your parents would be very disappointed with you if they saw you now."

"What's the point, they're dead. Like everyone else in my life."

Anger flared in Kakashi and he spun the man around to face him.

"Not everyone," he said. "You still have me, and Iruke, Sakura and all of your friends. You even have Sasuke. We're not dead, and we don't plan to be for a very long time."

"Sasuke?" said Naruto in shock. "Is Sasuke..."

"He had been found, three days ago. Guess you never bothered to read or watch the news during your seclusion."

Kakashi sighed and turned to the wall. On it were pictures of everyone important in Naruto's and Kushina's life. A photo of him, Iruka and Obito as teenagers with Minato behind them. Kushina and Minato's engagement party, and Kushina and Naruto at his seventeenth birthday.

"First time I met your mother was during your dad's funeral. I was just a teenager. I didn't know what to say. She just hugged me and said she was happy to met me. Minato had told her so much about me, Obito and Iruka. I didn't know what to say. All I could do was cry."

Kakashi drew a deep breath as he looked at the pictures. He lifted a hand and touched the photograph of himself and his friends.

"I had lost Obito the year before," he said. "Drive by. He took the bullet meant for me. He had been like me. A good kid. Just lost."

Naruto watched his mentor with a bit of curiousity and awe. He had heard the stories before from his mother, but she spoke of it sadly. Not the anguish that was behind Kakashi's voice.

"Your mother told me the same thing your father did when I lost Obito, 'There's no one that doesn't carry scars on his heart. If there were someone in the world like that, he would be a shallow soul'."

He turns to Naruto and out a hand on the man's shoulder. He was still shocked by how much Naruto resembled Minato, except he had his mother's fox-like grin.

"You're like your dad," he said. "You want to heal the scars on the hearts of people around you, and you do it like your mother. By putting a smile on their face and putting the one's that hurt them behind bars." He turns back to the picture. "When I lost Obito, I felt as if it was my fault. He wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me. Minato taught me that, I can't control fate, and there no one to blame but the person who pulled the trigger.

"Everybody keeps saying how intelligent Kurogane was, even you. He chose to jump in front of that bullet. He chose for you to live. Live, and put his killer behind bars."

Kakashi turned and walked back downstairs. He barely got three steps when he heard Naruto say his name.

"Kakashi-sensei."

Kakashi turned back to him and Naruto gave him a sad, but grateful smile.

"Thanks."

Kakashi nodded and continued down the stairs. He had had a kitchen to clean.

TBC