"Senpai!" Kinoe exclaims in a hushed shout, his usually blank eyes brightening when he catches sight of Kakashi. He lets go of the seal that his gloved hands had been tightly clasped in, and the curved spirals of wood surrounding him withered back into the forest floor like they had never been there.
"Yo," Kakashi says, waving lazily. "Kinoe."
The mokuton user tilts his head curiously when he notices Kabuto, who has hidden himself behind Kakashi. But the more Kinoe tries to make eye-contact, the more the boy lowers his head to hide his red-rimmed eyes.
Huffing in fond exasperation, Kakashi reaches behind him to pet Kabuto's hair. "Mind if Kabuto watches? He's new."
Kinoe accepts readily, even though his eyes follow Kakashi's hand with a bit too much intensity. Sakumo smiles. Missions have kept Kakashi busy these few weeks. With Kabuto assigned as Kakashi's charge, Kinoe has probably been getting less of Kakashi's attention than he has been hoping for. It is also why Kakashi has arranged for them to spar today, in the backyard of the Shimura estate.
Before they can get into position, however, a little ink rat shoots out of the undergrowth and bumps against Kakashi's ankle. The young mokuton user's face blanks further.
"Oh? What's this?" Kakashi exclaims, humouring their new arrivals with exaggerated surprise. The blobby little creature crawls into Kakashi's palm, its ink drop eyes blinking innocently. Kabuto shakes out of his misery to gape at it in fascination, his mouth hanging open in comical surprise. "Who could possibly have created this wonderful piece of art?" Kakashi asks himself. "Hm."
There is a stifled sound of delight, quickly muffled. A moment later, two boys emerge from behind one of the trees, both of them in the ROOT uniform. The dark-haired child smiles shyly at Kakashi, a scroll and brush clutched in his small, ink-stained hands. He bows, and so does the older silver-haired boy. "Sorry for interrupting, Kakashi-san, Kinoe-san," the older boy greets politely. His protective stance in front of the other boy is not lost on Sakumo.
"You're the ones who got senpai into trouble," Kinoe says, looking put out by their sudden appearance.
"It's okay, Kinoe," Kakashi says warmly, before the two kids can stutter out any apologies or run away. Beckoning the two of them to come forward, Kakashi gives them his best eye-smile. "Would you like to watch me and Kinoe spar as well?"
"Yes, please?" the younger boy bursts out saying, hardly seeming to believe his luck, and the older boy relaxes. It seems that Kakashi is a bit of a hero to them too, Sakumo observes in amusement.
"Great, go sit over there? Kabuto, you too."
With their audience all settled at the edge of the clearing, safely out of the way of any jutsus that may stray from their spar, Kakashi turns to Kinoe with a smile. A kunai spins into his hand, glinting in the dappled sunlight streaming through the forest. "Let's see what you've been working on, hm?"
Kinoe's frown disappears. "Yes!" With a clap, he fits his fingers together into the snake seal and sets his feet in a sturdy stance. "Mokuton!"
"What's your name?" Kabuto asks the silver-haired boy, finally working up the courage to give the other ROOT trainee a tentative smile. Kakashi and Kinoe have been sparring for a while, and the children have been getting fidgety. "I'm Kabuto. Yakushi Kabuto."
The silver-haired boy looks surprised. "You have a name? Wow."
"Don't you have a name too?"
"No. We only get names when we pass the graduation exam and get our first mission. Or," the boy purses his lips thoughtfully, watching as Kinoe sends an armful of wooden spikes towards Kakashi, "if Danzou-sama really likes you. Like Kinoe. He's super good. No-one else knows how to use that wood jutsu, so he's Danzou-sama's favourite."
"What about that ink jutsu?"
The dark-haired boy answers without looking up from his painting— an urchin-like creature clearly inspired by Kinoe's wooden spikes. "It's special but not super special." Despite his words, the dark haired boy doesn't seem to mind it at all. A contented look fills his face as he lays on his stomach and paints with careful brushstrokes.
"But if you don't have names, then how do you know who's who?"
"It doesn't matter who's who. Not until you're good enough a shinobi to be useful on a mission. Then you get a codename so mission commands don't get messed up."
Kabuto becomes quiet. His eyes are on the spar before him, but his mind is far away— probably on Nonou and his friends in the orphanage. "That's so sad... Nonou-san, our caretaker at the orphanage, gave me her name. Yakushi."
The other boy looks impressed. "You must be special to her then."
Kabuto's chin wobbles. "Yeah, I think so..."
The silver-haired boy shifts closer, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "I'll tell you a secret," he says softly. Kabuto's eyes widen questioningly as the boy cups his hand to his mouth and leans in. "The two of us don't have names, but we're brothers."
"You're related?"
"Nope," he answers, still smiling. "But we don't have to be. I'm his nii-san and he's my otouto. That's all we need to know." The boy seems content to leave it at that, a soft smile on his face as he goes back to watching the spar. "Whether we pass the graduation exam or not, we'll always be brothers. That's even better than a name, isn't it?"
Kabuto bites the inside of his cheek, his gaze returning to the two older boys wrestling in the pile of woodchips. "I think so," he says finally. "If you have a name but no one to call you by it, that would be even more lonely, wouldn't it?"
"Exactly," the silver-haired boy chirps, casting a smile to his brother, who returns it. "So it's alright."
Across the clearing, Kakashi has finally pinned down Kinoe. "My win!" Kakashi chuckles, letting go and collapsing on the ground beside his opponent. He's chuckling, arms thrown out and face sweaty as he points out the wood chips in Kinoe's long mane of hair. Kabuto turns away and hugs his knees to himself, his face full of longing.
"Kabuto-san, you didn't need to pass the graduation exam, right?"
Startling from his thoughts, Kabuto shakes his head.
The silver-haired ROOT trainee sighs. "I should have known. The older nins won't tell us anything. But I know some people don't make it back."
Kabuto falters, not knowing what to say. "Danzou-sama sounds strict." The other boy nods solemnly.
"You just need to focus on working hard," Kinoe declares as he strides up to them. The adrenaline of a good spar has put a bounce in his step. "Danzou-sama won't let your talents go to waste if you show him that you're doing your best."
The small crease at Kakashi's forehead hints at his inner conflict, but faced with such enthusiasm, he can hardly say anything negative about the elder. Neither of the younger ROOT trainees look nearly as confident as Kinoe does, but they both nod in agreement.
Sakumo doesn't blame Kinoe for having such faith in Danzou. From what he'd heard, the elder had saved the boy from perishing in Orochimaru's clutches. When Kakashi had first arrived, that glimpse into Orochimaru's lab that they'd gotten was enough to give Sakumo nightmares. He cannot imagine the terrible things that Kinoe must have suffered there.
Despite Sakumo's hopes that Kakashi will be able to introduce Kinoe to the world beyond the austere, confined boundaries of ROOT, he cannot imagine the discovery of Danzou's true nature being anything less than crushing to Kinoe.
"Good spar," Kakashi says as he places a hand on Kinoe's shoulder. He pretends to lean on him, groaning as he clutches his side. "You punch hard for someone your size, Kinoe. You've improved."
The mokuton-user looks away, his face turning redder. "I still have a long way to go."
"It's a powerful jutsu that you have," Kakashi says as he lays down with a groan and pillows his head against a tree root. "The Shodaime would have been happy to see you protect Konoha with it."
"Yes, senpai."
Kakashi eye-smiles. "Don't just stand there, come sit."
They have a spare moment before they are to return to headquarters for the evening meal, so they spend it together, soaking up the warm weather that has invaded Konoha. There is a strange feeling of camaraderie, each one of them enjoying the quiet.
"Look," the dark-haired boy says, out of breath from controlling chakra imbued ink. The ink-urchin that he'd been working on pops out of the scroll and rolls over to Kinoe, stopping before his knee.
"Is it sharp?" Kinoe asks, eyeing the thing warily.
"Nope," the boy says, bright-eyed. "It's squishy. Touch it!"
Kinoe pokes at it tentatively, and the ink-urchin wobbles. The boy who had painted it giggles, glancing around nervously before giggling again. Kakashi chuckles too, also reaching to prod at it, and Kabuto adjusts his glasses to squint at it curiously.
"It's soft," the dark-haired boy repeats, quiet like he's afraid of being overheard. "It won't hurt you."
"You can't use something squishy like this on a mission, though," Kinoe says, clearly puzzled by the younger ROOT trainee's enthusiasm. He rolls his palm against the ink-urchin, testing its texture. "What would you use this for?"
The dark-haired boy becomes slightly nervous. "I don't know. Maybe sending messages? I can draw things with sharp teeth and claws, but I don't want anyone to get hurt." Clearly embarrassed, he kneels over his scroll and draws another rat. A fluffy one, with big, cartoonish ears.
The rat peels off the scroll and goes sniffing around, scrabbling onto Kakashi shoulder and making him yelp when it pokes its snout into his ear. "See?" the young artist says, beaming. "Now it can pass a message."
The older boy bring his hands up to the rat, petting it as he nods and pretends to listen to it. "Mm? What are you saying?" He cracks open an eye, his cheeky smile hidden behind his mask. "You're all good boys and deserve treats? Really?"
Kinoe looks more confused than anything, unused to this kind of play-pretend, but the younger boys are all enjoying it.
"Maa, maa, alright. I suppose I'll have to get you all treats."
A/N: askdjfasdjf thanks for reading! It's not my best chapter unfortunately. I'll be busier next week so the next chapter might be delayed, sorry! We'll see how it goes.