One would expect Tea Country to be warmer.
Michiko can hear the drops hurtling themselves against the walls, against the windowpanes, over every vulnerable surface. She can feel them on her mind, hammering relentlessly against her efforts to rest.
Having finally escaped the dark, revolting and wet prison of Kirigakure, Michiko tries to find comfort in the sound, but it gives her the beginnings of a headache. The right half of her face has already been throbbing, her skin burning as it slowly attempts to heal itself. The deep wound stopped bleeding yesterday, but it is still tender, and the raw skin is fragile. Michiko is surprised that it hasn't been infected yet.
Perched on the end of the small, uncomfortable motel bed with her legs folded under her, she slowly polishes her wakizashi with a damp cloth. The aim is to remove all the thick flecks of blood that have accumulated over this past, grizzly week.
Her eyes flit quickly to the door, beholding it seconds before it is callously thrown open. It rattles across its frame frantically.
More noise to push her further to the edge of her barely composed calm.
A lanky, pale figure looms in the doorway, his pale hair and skin almost glowing in the dim light from the bedroom lamp. She watches him cautiously, her heart hammering from the unexpectedness of his call. While maintaining outward calm, she is assessing her chances of escaping from the small room- her only way out would be the terrace door, if she is quick enough (which she knows she isn't).
"What a surprise." She speaks. Coolly, Michiko continues to wipe the blade. Focusing her attention on the bleary reflection of her eyes in the metal. It soothes her.
"I was bored. I wanted to see what you were doing."
He invites himself in, the door clicking shut behind him. His unsettling eyes are studying her carefully, fully aware of the effect he has over her. It still annoys him that she is constantly on guard, as if he may spring on her any second.
He has rescued her from a certain and violent death.
'She should be more grateful.'
Abruptly holding out her wakizashi by its hilt, she offers him her blade, an extension of trust. "It's my father's." She explains. He takes it with childlike interest.
Yes, Michiko. Go ahead and hand him a fucking weapon. She clenches her jaw, momentarily silencing the internal voice.
"Nice." Running a hand over the metal, he grins, revealing a row of sharp teeth that Michiko can't help but stare at.
He studies the hilt, the end of which is carved into a monkey-head. Amused he glances at her questioningly, "Seriously?"
Michiko shrugs, awkwardly. "It's been in the Sarutobi family for generations."
"Yeah, you can see the age in the way the blade has been shaped." He says, studying something or the other in the width of the blade. Michiko watches him cautiously, unsure exactly what indicates age in the sword- it is in top condition. "Look at these little grooves here."
He holds the blade close to her, fingers pointing out the minute grooves along the edge of the blade, "This is what makes the blade dangerous." He sounds excited, "Only blades dating back over the last 300 years have these grooves carved into them. Today, most of the secrets around how these were made are lost and blacksmiths can't figure it out anymore." He pauses his monologue as he teases the tiny grooves with the nail of his index finger.
"It's fuckin' well-used." He gives it back to her and Michiko scrapes at a particularly dark and thick spot of dry blood she has just noticed.
The man wanders absentmindedly to the terrace door and slides it open, allowing a smattering of rain drops to invade the room. He stands there, feeling the rain on his face with shut eyes.
He thinks about several things: his teammates, Kirigakure's anbu, his family and lastly, his baby brother.
Michiko chooses to avoid looking his way but ends up eyeing him curiously. He is a strange man, not just in his mannerisms, but also in the things he chooses to fight for.
"You need to get out of here."
He can feel her perplexed gaze cutting through him as he speaks and is unsurprised by her sharply asked question, "What are you going to do?"
"I have to make sure my little brother is okay." Turning on his heel to face her, his expression is solemn, "They might not spare him if they discover that I was in on the other's plan."
Guiltily, Michiko takes a deep breath.
Of course, he has family in Kirigakure… Shit.
"I can't really go back with you and help, can I?"
"Not unless you want to waste all the fuckin' effort I put into keeping you alive." He grins again, making a half-smile ghost the sombre girl's lips. "Did you use that ointment I gave you for your face?"
"No. I forgot." She shrugs, seemingly nonchalant.
"Oh, Kaguya." He responds, clearly exasperated. "You take a blow for me, and now you won't let me heal you in return. Tsk." Clicking his tongue, he fishes out a small tub of the same ointment from his pocket.
"It'll reduce the scarring, do it for your pretty little face." He holds it out. Michiko wearily takes it, unscrewing the lid and sniffing it. She immediately pulls a face, disgusted.
"It smells."
Grinning, although not cruelly, he crosses his arms somewhat defiantly. "It's made of things you can only find under the ocean. It's not exactly meant for perfuming."
"How do I know this isn't poisoned?"
He rolls his eyes, "Yeah, I'd bust my ass to break you out of my village, risk my fuckin' reputation just to bring you to this shit hole to kill you with poison. True genius. Tell me, when you return to Konoha will you try for Hokage?"
Grimacing in surrender, she scoops out a generous amount of the green goo and uses the reflection of her face in the blade to locate the cut-up skin; long, rough and revealing lines of raw skin, the scar cuts across her right cheek from the top of the ridge of her nose, down to her jawbone. It stings as she gently coats it and she imagines that her blood is threatening to ooze out beneath the forming scab. She grinds her teeth; the pain is intense.
A few seconds later, the burning sensation is replaced by an intensely cool one, as if half her face had been submerged in ice. With the pain eased, she feels her body relax.
Michiko didn't realise she was so tense. She is woozy from the sudden relief.
"Leave tonight." He is serious now, having walked back to the rattly motel room door "Someone will be coming for you soon."
Michiko climbs off the bed to slide the terrace door shut, "Wait." She calls out before he can open the door to leave. He glances at her over his shoulder.
"Thanks. For everything. Really." Standing by the closed door, her expression as stoic as one would expect. She fails to conceal the telling tremor in her voice, "I couldn't have survived without you, nor could I have found the Kaguya st-"
Before she can continue, he cuts her off with a hand raised to silence her.
"Listen to me, Kaguya Michiko. I'm glad I met you in my lifetime, despite the odds. Our clans were allies, and maybe if the Kaguya hadn't made a fuckin' mess of themselves, you and I could have been married and made more little swordsmen."
Although his eyes twinkle with mirth, he sounds a little mournful. "Unfortunately for us, we have to part ways. Maybe we'll meet again eh?"
He holds her gaze firmly, grinning ferally as if his somewhat moving speech was nothing special, "You don't owe me jack shit, okay? Just go home. Live. Fuck your boyfriend. Fuck other men. Or women. Train harder. Get stronger. Do whatever you want."
"Thank you, Mangetsu-senpai." She bows gratefully. His words trigger something within her; her throat tightens, and her chest swells with emotion. When she looks back up at the door, the swordsman is gone.
She stands rooted to her spot, thoughts hurtling a mile a minute as she tries to create a coherent plan.
What now? Do I just go back to Konoha?
Throwing a quick look over her scarce belongings, she begins to put on the scavenged bits of armour. Most of it is standard Kiri anbu wear, not much different from Konoha's. Hoisting her haori over the sleeveless vest, she sheathes her wakizashi into its holster on her right hip, and hoists the katana-holder across her shoulder, buckling it to her back.
Just as she moves to pick up her tiny rucksack, she feels the ping of a familiar chakra. In a flash, she ducks, concealing her chakra fully and switches off the lamp.
This will have to do.
Standing in a particularly dark corner of the room, Michiko is very still. Six months inside a prison cell have made her eyes very well adjusted to the dark.
A flash of lightning illuminates the room, and the rain drops pelt down harder. She can hear the rhythm of the 'thwick thwack' as they hit the building. The sound only furthers her anticipation for whoever is coming.
Thunder cracks across the sky. Michiko crouches in the room, wondering if Mangetsu has sensed whoever was approaching.
Or has someone come here looking for him? Fuck, is he using me as a distraction while he escapes?
Cursing herself for not leaving earlier, she stills as a dark shadow appears behind the terrace door, a fuzzy silhouette against the thin screen door. Every muscle in her body is tense, she can feel the tautness around her spine and in the soles of her feet.
The man on the other side stands in silence, hands hanging by his side as he waits. It's a rather anticlimactic entrance, in Michiko's opinion.
While he doesn't know what to expect, he does expect her to guilt him and rightly so; he never should have left her behind eight months ago.
He waits in the little balcony, eyeing the quiet village and the pounding rain. He is sufficiently soaked, and takes a single, long inhale before he slides the door open.
'It's unlocked. How convenient.' He knows better than to think it was a mistake, with one hand resting on the door frame, he peers inside. His Sharingan glows tellingly in the dark, and he can pick up her scent very clearly in the room, although it is very coppery.
'She's bleeding.'
He ducks in, scanning the floor for a body. When his sandals squelch against the wet carpet, he freezes, fully aware of the pair of eyes watching him.
'Clever girl.'
He hears the swift sound of movement before he feels the cold, sharp edge of a blade on his throat as Michiko grapples him from behind. With her bicep around his neck, wakizashi cutting into his skin, Michiko pushes off his mask with a rough hand.
"Honestly taichou, your hair gives you away every fucking time. What is the point of these masks?" She hisses, lips brushing against the cold, damp skin of his ear.
A chuckle rumbles in his chest and Michiko decides that she does not want to give him a warm welcome, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't slit your throat right now."
As her lips brush against the gentle conch of his ear again, and he catches the metallic scent of his own blood from the skin breaking open gently under her blade, Kakashi feels strangely aroused.
Wishing he could squirm out of her grip, the jounin becomes very still. Much like a scarecrow, his lax body seems completely unperturbed by Michiko's dangerous position. Kakashi can feel the heat radiating off the bare parts of her skin; her neck which is close to his face, her forehead, her chest pressed against his back. Under his chin he can feel the firm muscle of her arm pushing his neck a little higher. She could cut his throat now, and he would be done for, but the fear of death never really comes to him.
"I have none. I should never have left you." The pleasantness of his unwavering, calm voice annoys Michiko.
"Yeah. Fuck you Kakashi." She releases him and retreats a few steps away from him. He hears the distinct sound of a sheathed blade, followed by the flutter of material as she puts something on, and he wonders just how barely she was dressed.
"Whatever the fuck happened to 'I won't let my comrades die'? Was I not a fucking comrade to you?"
Her stinging words do little to affect him, and he glances over his shoulder as she flicks on the lamp. He is disappointed to find her dressed in what he guesses to be scavenged pieces of Anbu clothing; a high-necked sleeveless top, standard trousers and the flutter must have been of the black and grey haori she has pulled on.
"It's great to see you too, Michiko."
"Yeah, it should fucking be. What are you doing here?" She slides the terrace door shut and picks up a bundle of white gauze from the bed, busying herself with whatever she was doing before he disturbed her. Kakashi runs a hand through his hair and then crouches to pick his mask up off the floor.
"I'm here to take you back to Konoha." With the mask placed over his head, he returns his attention to the target of his mission. In profile, he sees that her face is marred by an angry, painful wound and the sight of it makes his mouth dry. As she attempts to wrap it over her scar, Kakashi's fingers twitch.
He is no longer the harsh, cold taichou of Team Ro, but as Michiko continues to ignore him, he summons that commanding tone that he has reserved for his current Anbu squad.
"Give me the bandages, Sarutobi."
She half-turns, unconsciously following his orders from a habit solidified over her younger years- then halts, her pained expression replaced quickly by a stubborn one. Before she can verbalize her protest, he snatches the bandages from her hands and quickly works his fingers to untangle the mess. He avoids her pointed stare, amused by this newfound fieriness in her.
"You're lucky that it isn't infected."
He attempts to dress the wound, wishing she wasn't looking at him so maliciously. She flinches when he touches the sensitive skin.
"Tie your hair back." He waits, expecting her to obey but she only glares at him, her mouth set firmly. From this close, he can see his reflection in her eyes. Eventually, his unperturbed, calm visage convinces her to do as she is told. Without looking away from him, she brings her wrist to her face and with her teeth, she tugs the hair tie off. She pulls her very, very long hair back messily and ties it.
Her unruly appearance is a staggering change from the neat Michiko of Konohagukare.
'She last cut her hair four years ago, I bet.' Focusing on the task at hand, he assesses the state of her skin, ignoring the way her eyes follow him as he leans closer. She leans back a little, shifting her footing to maintain her balance.
"Do you have an ointment or a disinfectant?"
"I have this." She picks the small tub off the bedside table and pulls open the lid. They are both greeted by its fishy smell.
"Okay. Stay still."
He scoops the gooey ointment using two of his fingers and lays it thickly over the wound. From this close he can see that her jaw is clenched. The muscles twitch as he carefully smooths the ointment over her skin.
"Come closer." He orders.
Briefly glancing away to roll her eyes, she steps towards him. His commanding tone is beginning to irk her. Michiko suddenly remembers Kakashi teasing her about a captain kink. The memory is vaguely embarrassing and raises some very inappropriate ideas to her mind.
Kakashi pays little mind to her as he carefully wraps the bandage over the bridge of her nose, and then around her head. Whenever the bandage shifts a little over her skin, she flinches or clamps her eyes shut. He continues until the bandage runs securely across her face and covers the wound.
"That should be enough."
Michiko simply nods, stepping around him to collect her rucksack. She hoists it over her shoulder, turning to her ex-captain again.
"You found me just in time. We have to leave now, Kakashi." Urging him to move, she gestures with her head for him to get a move on. "Let's go."
As she peers out onto the terrace, the rain is still going strong, "We can make it out undetected under the cover of the rain."
Kakashi hasn't moved, watching her curiously. She hasn't reacted to seeing Obito's Sharingan- it used to make her incredibly uncomfortable, even a few years after watching him use it. Now it is as if there is nothing unusual about his unmatched eyes.
"Michiko."
She turns to him, looking annoyed. With her hands planted on her hips, she narrows her eyes at him.
"What?"
"Shut the door and come here."
Frowning, she shakes her head as if to say, 'what are you saying?' and then turns on her heel and slams the terrace door shut angrily. She crosses her arms as she stands by the door expectantly.
"I said come here." Firm, as if he were talking to a dog, Kakashi watches her. He is very still and he hears Michiko's heartbeat pick up, she is suddenly afraid. Pleased, he shoves his hands in his pockets and waits patiently for her to come and stand before him. When she does move, he is aware of the little kunai she keeps hidden in one of her sleeves.
Directly in front of him, she tilts her head back to look up at him, suspecting that he simply wanted to make her physical disadvantage more obvious to her.
"Hokage-sama wants you to return to Konoha as part of the Hime division. Will you accept this position?"
Alarmed, her grip tightens rather painfully around the kunai she has concealed, "If I don't?"
"If you don't, I will leave you here at the hands of the Kiri-Anbu that are approaching."
"Fuck."
Hearing the word fall from her mouth so softly is somewhat alluring. Kakashi cocks an eyebrow, glancing at the door as he senses them approaching quicker.
"Okay, I fucking accept. Let's go!"
Both jounin duck and roll across the floor as the room is filled with shuriken. The sheets are shredded, the walls are pierced, the furniture is destroyed, just as they skid out onto the tiny balcony. Wasting no time, Michiko leaps across onto the roof of a neighboring building. In her dark clothing, she is nearly invisible.
Kakashi curses under his breath, replacing his mask as he attempts to follow, only to find that he has no option but to drop down onto the street. With the Anbu silently on her tail, Michiko sprints from one roof to the other.
She realises Kakashi isn't with her and panics.
Ducking to avoid a sword to her neck, she twists and launches her fist at her pursuer. He easily dodges, and they are engaged in a quick spar. Luckily, Michiko manages to evade any serious damage, and jumps off the roof into the dark alley below where another Kiri-Anbu is lying in wait.
Kakashi stealthily disposes of him, emerging from the darkness behind him.
"Thanks." Michiko whispers, glancing up and following Kakashi as he leads her away from their other pursuer.
"There's six of them." He tells her as they sprint through the dark. The rain makes it difficult for them to track where the nin are, because concealed in the rainwater, it seems like their chakra is everywhere.
Suddenly, Kakashi is thrown three feet into the air with a surprised 'oof'. Michiko leaps across to evade whatever is coming and unsheathes both her blades to protect her companion.
I wanted to avoid this.
She can see three of the nin, their figures blurred by the intense rain. Kakashi is gone from her view, replaced by a log. With his Sharingan, he is able to protect himself, quickly disposing of his attacker. Soon he has a second enemy in deadlock as Michiko takes on two of the others.
'If the other three join us too, we're done for.' Crushing the enemy's chest, Kakashi quickly moves onto his next target. Appearing behind the Kiri Anbu, he inserts his katana through the back of the shinobi's neck in a smooth and fluid movement.
He is alarmed to find Michiko standing before their third opponent, the fourth one lying in a silent and still heap a few feet away from her.
In the few seconds that his Sharingan sees what is coming, he is rather horrified to witness her literally reduce the Anbu to shreds. Blood pools on the ground, black in the moonlight and constantly rippled by the powerful rain. Eerily, she seems to watch him from over her shoulder and when she turns towards him, peeking out from beneath the bandage across her forehead is half of a red circle.
'Interesting' Kakashi has done his bit of reading on the Kaguya clan, he knows that there are two circles, markings of ninja 'royalty'. It is an unusual addition to the Sarutobi's face.
The sleeves of her haori have been reduced to shreds.
Impressed, Kakashi scans the vicinity one last time. They take off together.
A few hours later, they are close to the borders of Tea Country and the rain has eased.
"Let's pause here." Kakashi takes a nip of his thumb and summons one of his ninken. Michiko has never met any of them before and is flustered to see the absolutely adorable pug squinting at them in the dark.
After the torrential downpour and unceasing action, Kakashi's hair hangs limp over the top of his mask, stuck flat in some places, and curling from the weight of the water in other.
"Ne, Kakashi. It's late. What do you want?" Pakkun licks his paw and then wipes the side of his face, much like a cat. He is totally unaffected by the miserable sight that is the wet Hatake Kakashi.
Then the dog notices Michiko, looking at her rather inquisitively.
"Oh, there she is. Thought you said she might be tough."
Michiko shoots Kakashi a perplexed look, but he is busy ignoring her and Pakkun's comment as he ties a small note to the dog's back, "Take this back to Hokage-sama."
"Wait, wait." Michiko interrupts, "Why don't we just take it ourselves?"
Kakashi shoots her a look that she can feel through the dark. Confused, she raises her palms in surrender as the dog disappears into the forest with a final, sharp comment to his summoner that she doesn't quiet catch.
Somewhere in the visceral and never-ending darkness around them, the air is disturbed by a hidden force. Michiko is distracted by the sensation, but ultimately thinks nothing of it.
"Your response was time-bound. Our journey will take longer on foot then it will take Pakkun." He explains as he brushes past her. The physical proximity kicks up between them like dust on a windy, dry day, and as Kakashi nonchalantly passes her by, he leaves her feeling withered and annoyed.
Can he not see me standing here?
Kakashi can feel her boring holes into his back and he wonders why she is watching him so intensely. Finally, she begins to follow him. She occasionally calls out to him, something he finds strange but comforting.
After an awkward, tense bout of silence, she calls out to him again, "Kakashi?" Almost as if she were checking to make sure he is really there. Her voice is soft, as if she were even unsure this is reality.
"Michiko, I'm right here." Abruptly halting so that she walks face first into his back, her forehead thumps against the space between his shoulder blades.
"Ah!" She grabs his forearms and pushes her body away, eyes wide and nervous in the dark, "What are you doing?"
"What are you doing? Every 10 steps you're like 'eh Kakashi', 'Kakashi'." The man sounds flustered, the tips of his ears are warm, and even he is unsure why he is so annoyed, "I'm literally right in front of you, Michiko."
Blinking quietly at him, her face expressionless and unrelenting, Kakashi realises how pale she is. As he slowly pieces together that she was probably in prison, he suddenly feels guilty for losing his patience.
He turns away from her wordlessly and continues, listening keenly for her footsteps behind him. She is so quiet that if it wasn't for the swish swish of her trousers, he would not know she was following.
Eventually, they are so deep into the wilderness that the air is stuffy and Kakashi has to pull his mask down to breathe deeply. Again, Michiko senses something and pauses. She is so still in the dark that the Hatake thinks he has lost her.
"Michiko?" Whispering cautiously, he reaches out with a hand in her direction. He doesn't realise how close to him she actually is, and his fingers brush the top of her hip. Again, Michiko is distracted from the strange perturbation and this time, she is convinced that someone is there.
"Someone is here." Taking Kakashi by the straps of his body armour, she pulls him towards her so that they are shrouded in the insides of a hollow tree. Kakashi realises he needs his Sharingan to see. His glowing red eye irks Michiko, who has been studying his face very intently.
'How did Michiko navigate into this?'
She has no special ability to see through the dark, as far as he is aware. A question for later on, he tucks it away in his mind.
"There's no one there, Michiko."
"There is."
"No, it's just the forest. It's playing tricks, you know how nature can be." Calmly removing himself from the trunk, he sniffs the air.
'Nothing new.'
"I swear I've felt something twice…" She half-whispers as she emerges out of the dead tree. She tries to scan the area for unfamiliar chakra, but besides the forest, she feels nothing.
Kakashi has already carried on. She can just barely see the silver lines of his hair in the distance.
Letting him lead the way, they continue their journey at a much faster pace. After a few kilometres of silence, Michiko decides to ask some questions.
"Why am I being called back?"
Ominously, a crack of thunder reverberates through the sky. Kakashi listens as the rain picks up again, hoping that he doesn't get pneumonia from all this wet running.
"Your uncle has a lot on his plate. He needs you to help him deal with some family matters."
"What?" Michiko is confused, "What family matters? Sounds like bullshit to me. You said he wanted me as part of Division Hime. I don't even know what the fuck that is."
Kakashi shrugs.
In truth, Michiko is digging to find out about a specific situation in Konoha. She is concerned that this might have something to do with the Uchiha.
Her fears of genocide have become very real, especially after witnessing the ease of it in Kirigakure. Time and time again, clans have been wiped out after they have been deemed a threat. Now, it seems like the more likely end for the Uchiha.
"He didn't elaborate." Kakashi finishes simply, unaware of Michiko's real concerns, "What happened while you were in Kirigakure?"
"I was in prison." She quips, glaring at the space in front of her.
'Ah,' Kakashi finally understands her paranoid behaviour, 'No wonder.'
The dark is unnerving, and she continuously switches between watching Kakashi and looking ahead at their path, "After they uncovered the moles that you rescued, they wanted to use me as a trump against Konoha."
"But they didn't." Kakashi says, "Why?"
"Someone figured out I was a Kaguya." Kakashi's eyebrow jumps up in curiosity, but his look is lost in darkness.
She continues, "If you get captured by one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, usually you die, or they subject you to whatever they want and then kill you."
Kakashi feels the beginning of a cold and sneezes loudly, burying his nose in the back of his hand.
'Oh great, here we go.'
Amused, Michiko half-smiles at him although he doesn't see it.
"So, the swordsman that captured me decided he wanted to keep me in a dark prison for months. For fun."
Pulling down his mask, Kakashi wipes his nose with his glove.
'Thankfully there isn't any snot on my mask.'
Noticing that Michiko has gone silent, he worries that she thinks he isn't paying attention.
"How did you escape?"
"That's the part you won't believe. One of the other swordsmen of the mist found out about me, and then broke me out because I was from a clan that was an ally of his own. The Hozuki Clan."
"Really? But the Swordsmen are supposed to be Kiri's top dogs."
"They are. They were, but some things happened that they disagreed with the Mizukage over… And then they just upped and left Kiri."
"Seriously? That's really… unbelievable. Do you know what made them turn?"
"Yeah, vaguely. Something about another clan genocide."
"That's dark." Kakashi ponders over his knowledge of the situation in Kirigakure, but nothing about genocide ever sprang up in their intel updates, "You're pretty lucky huh?"
"I guess." Sounding uncertain, Michiko phases out for a few seconds, "I regret being gone for so long. I was planning on going into Kirigakure but not like that and definitely not for eight months."
Silence descends between them again. Michiko wants to ask about Shisui but decides that she can wait till she gets home to just see him. The prospect leaves a tense feeling in her chest.
Suddenly, Michiko feels sorry for her behaviour; it was her that urged Kakashi and the others to leave.
She wanted to rescue them because she didn't want any more of the people around her to die. Now she knows that death is a natural thing, and for it to linger around her just means that she is alive.
As he walks a little faster, Michiko lingers behind him. She is constantly scanning the periphery, and an intense sorrow settles over her.
"How's the situation in Konoha?" She thinks she sees something, and glares into the darkness. One hand is placed ever ready on the hilt of her short blade.
"It's stable, for now."
Their feet are soundless, even over the scattered leaves. Kakashi seems to lose himself in navigating through the dark although Michiko doesn't seem to have a difficult time. They are quiet for a good half an hour. Kakashi marches on, Michiko follows, pausing occasionally to check for followers or enemies. Soon, it is so silent that she can hear him breathing and her own heart beating.
Here the terrain begins to change. From the thick, suffocating woodlands, the ground has shifted. Rising and falling like frozen waves, the land is covered in a thick, dense layer of grass. Rocks break out of the soil, scattering lumps of dark forms.
Kakashi gestures for her to follow cautiously, climbing over a rock. Using their chakra, they scale a small mound. At the top, the overhead foliage gives away to a view of the clear sky, moonlight filtered into a small spotlight where the two now stand side by side.
A clear night sky is just as beautiful as a starry one when you don't get to see it for months. Michiko lifts her face to the open sky until the image of the moon is imprinted on her eyes.
The moment is less soothing for Kakashi, who is eerily reminded of the night that continues to haunt him. The jounin feels his chest tighten. He feels sticky warmth over his arm, and panics.
'There's no blood here.' He reminds himself, his breath quivering as he desperately fights free of the waking nightmare playing before his eyes.
Noticing the stiffness of his shoulders, and the frightened look in his single eye, Michiko places a gentle hand on his forearm and whispers, "Kakashi."
Her soft voice rouses his attention, and he looks at her in alarm.
"I'm sorry, Kakashi." She squeezes his arm firmly, and the pressure forces him into the present.
"I'm sorry too, Michiko."
They lapse into silence, watching each other in the silver light.
"Let's go, shall we?" She walks to the edge and hops down, looking behind her to see if he follows. Kakashi falls into step behind her and they lithely make their way towards the base of the rocky mound. Once they reach the bottom, Kakashi brushes past her and takes her hand in his to guide her in the right direction.
"This is where Obito and Rin died."
He can feel the coldness of her hands through his gloves.
Michiko tries not to give the action any thought, but a part of her is very grateful for the human contact. She suddenly feels needy and pushes the growing sensation to the back of her mind.
They squeeze through a cramped space between the rocks and emerge into a hidden section of the mound.
The rocks and boulders littered before them are in fact, the scattered remains of a part of the mound. Before them, in the centre of the sprawl, is a giant boulder. Kakashi releases her hand and stands beside her, hands now in his pocket.
It is a very anti-climactic moment. Michiko takes in the sombre scene; the boulder in front of her is the very same which crushed her childhood 'sweetheart'.
This is where Obito-kun died…
She almost wishes she wasn't here but having Kakashi by her side is a comfort. Obito is their shared grief. Their shared loss.
Awkwardly lingering beside him, she is unsure of whether she should say anything at all. Choosing to keep to herself, her attention flits to the space around them. She thinks about her mysterious kidnapper, and how much she wondered if he was Obito.
Maybe it was some kind of wishful thinking, that he was out there somewhere alive. I wish I could meet him again… I wonder what he would think of me now.
"Michiko." Completely caught off guard, Michiko is startled and turns too quickly, bumping into Kakashi. He takes hold of her shoulders and steadies her, "Let's move on."
His words literally mean one thing, but her mind interprets them the other way; she thinks of letting go of Obito's memory. But it is one of his eyes she is staring at.
How could I really let him go?
Seeing Michiko look so vulnerable and confused flusters Kakashi. He wishes he couldn't see her face, and he shuts his sharingan-eye- but he doesn't release her from his grip.
"Kakashi, I…" Trailing off into a wordless attempt at explaining something, Michiko resorts to moving her hands to his body, awkwardly wrapping her arms around him. The need for human contact is overwhelming, and when she presses herself to him, he holds her too.
He holds her tighter than he has held anyone before.
"I hope they're happy, wherever they are." She whispers. Rin isn't one she thinks about often, but she knows Rin meant something to Kakashi and Obito.
Unbeknownst to them, Obito has settled his eye on the pair. Even the dark cannot hide them from him; he watches them embrace jealously. For a moment he isn't sure which of the two he is jealous of, and in the end decides that he will need to let Michiko know what favors he bestowed on her when he arranged for her to escape from Kirigakure alive.