"Sakumo-san!" He sits up in alarm when he hears Rin's yell from down the hallway. She skids into view a moment later, her hair in her grinning face. "Kakashi's out!"
"W-What...?! That's great!" Sakumo gets up onto his feet with a wince, leaning on Rin when she offers her shoulder. "What changed? It hasn't been two weeks yet... though nearly."
Rin shoots him a grin. "I think you gave him a good scare."
"No way." Sakumo gives a small, incredulous laugh that hurts his wound. But Rin nods seriously. "Really?"
"Danzou is sleeping in another room now," Rin points out. "He's definitely shaken."
Sakumo smiles a little. Maybe it had all been futile and Kakashi would have been fine even without his intervention, but perhaps something had really come out of that disastrous fight. Just perhaps.
Sakumo's and Rin's elation fades when they get a proper look at the state that Kakashi is in. The young shinobi is slumped on the floor of Danzou's office, his clothes crumpled and filthy. He has his hands clapped over his ears and his eyes squeezed shut, his face turned away from the window. After more than a week of silence, simply the morning sunlight and the normal day-to-day sounds of the ROOT headquarters seems to be more than Kakashi can bear. He remains curled up on the ground, panting weakly and flinching at Danzou's approach.
The elder crouches down beside him, waiting until Kakashi cracks open his normal eye to look up at him.
"I'm disappointed, Kakashi."
Kakashi's face draws tight with pain and guilt, but he can't look away. He's open as a book now, all his barriers stripped away by whatever memories or hallucinations that had haunted him the past few days.
"I didn't think you'd disobey my orders so brazenly. After all I've done for you, too. Did you think that this sort of sentimentality will save anyone?" Danzou's voice lowered. "Don't be ridiculous. What do you think would have happened to Konoha if Minato hadn't sacrificed his own son to house the Kyuubi? Or if your friend Rin hadn't hardened her heart and used your Chidori, despite knowing the pain it would cause you?"
Kakashi twitches, his eye squeezing shut, and Rin makes a horrified sound. Sakumo wants to punch something—not for his own sake but because of how Danzou is using the people closest to Kakashi against him.
"People are tools," Danzou continues. "Tools are worthless unless they're can carry out their mission. If they aren't tried and tested, then we'll never know whether they're truly capable." The elder pauses and takes a long look at Kakashi. "Pathetic," he concludes, standing. "You're no use to anyone if you can't even understand these things. Put him back in the cell."
'No,'Kakashi mouths, reaching out and grasping the edge of Danzou's robe before he can walk away. 'Please, please.' He bows his head, begging, and Sakumo's heart clenches painfully. He'd attack Danzou again if he could, just to make the old man feel some pain again.
Danzou stops and seems to consider. Then, with a few hand seals, he releases Kakashi from the silencing seal.
Kakashi's voice is so hoarse that it takes him a few tries before he can speak. "I'm sorry," he croaks, still desperately clinging onto Danzou's robe. "G-Give me another chance. Don't put me back, please."
The elder crouches back down and smiles.
"I need to be able to trust you," Danzou murmurs. "And I don't know if I can. You'll have to fix your mistakes. Prove it to me that you're not a weapon that's going to break and cut me again. Do you understand?" He sighs at Kakashi's blank, panicked gaze. "Release the wards on the Hatake estate."
Kakashi's grip on his robe spasms. "Please… Don't punish them?"
"They will do what they have to do."
"Please…"
Danzou stands, pulling his clothes free from Kakashi's weak grip. "I suppose that's it—"
"No, I'll do it!" Kakashi gasps, crawling onto his hands and knees. "I'll go, I'll go…"
Sakumo wants to tear the smirk right off Danzou's face. How dare he...
"Good," the elder says, bending down to steady Kakashi with a hand on his shoulder. "You'll do that."
"Kakashi-san," Tiger calls when Kakashi does not emerge from the communal shower after an hour.
Kakashi dutifully shuffles out, still half-dressed with his wet hair plastered over his forehead. "I'm done," Kakashi mutters, his face pale and his legs unsteady. "Sorry, I... I think I lost track of time." He fumbles with the shirt in his hand, pulling it over his head with slow movements and staggering slightly as he does.
Tiger hand closes over his shoulder to steady him and he flinches violently.
"A-ah, sorry," Kakashi stutters as Tiger lets go. He rubs the spot where Tiger had touched, staring somewhere at Tiger's feet with a bewildered look.
"Hm," the ROOT agent grunts, turning away. "This is normal after being in the cell."
Kakashi follows him with a silent nod, a slightly faraway look in his eye. He'd forgotten to pull his mask up, leaving the cloth scrunched around his neck. When they leave the quiet confines of the residential areas, however, Kakashi is immediately hyper-alert.
His fists clench by his side, his spine stiff as he tries to keep himself from bolting from every yell or loud sound that comes from the sparring ground. Finally remembering the feeling of safety that is his mask, he pulls it up and settles it over his nose, breathing deep.
"Let's take the stairs," Tiger says. "You'll break your legs trying to leap up on the rafters."
Kakashi looks unhappy but he does not protest. He follows obediently until his knees lock and he stops before the stairwell's entrance. Sweat beads on his brow as he stares into its narrow, enclosed space.
Tiger sighs. "Bear with me. I'll go in front of you, so keep your eyes on me."
Being a shinobi means overcoming yourself.
Kakashi emerges from the curving stairwell with his face blanched and sweaty. Rin hovers around him, afraid that he's pushing himself too hard after spending so long in that tiny cell and receiving hardly any medical attention for the poison that Orochimaru had used. But the ROOT agent is being exceptionally gentle, Sakumo muses. What had changed? Tiger had been the one to point Kakashi towards the ROOT exam too. While Sakumo doubts that Tiger feels responsible for Kakashi's time in the cell, the ROOT shinobi seems to have softened.
Tiger leads him outside and pauses at the edge of the Shimura estate. "Remember your instructions? One, release the wards. Two, tell anyone who asks you that you'd been on a mission. Understood?"
Kakashi's gaze is fixed eagerly on the village outside. "Yes."
The broad expanse of the Hatake estate lays before him, its green fields swaying gently in the breeze. Kakashi walks forward, his hand outstretched to push open the gates. It opens easily for him; the wards recognising his chakra and welcoming him home with open arms.
"Oi, Hatake!" one of the ROOT agents escorting him calls. "Take down the wards."
Kakashi turns to them with a weary look in his eye. "I have to go deeper inside to access the seals. Undoing the wards as strong as these will take time," Kakashi lies.
There is no such thing, except for a couple of hand seals. Sakumo perks up, surprised that Kakashi has managed to come up with a story like this despite obviously being under tremendous mental strain. It is a lot to ask, but Sakumo hopes that Kakashi has a plan. He can't imagine what the guilt of surrendering the two younger boys back into Danzou's power would do to Kakashi.
With the ROOT agents' acquiescence, Kakashi steps through the gates and doesn't look back. The wards ripple back into place behind him, and despite knowing that this peace won't last, Sakumo is relieved.
It seems that the civilians had managed to plant the winter cover crops before Kakashi locked down the estate, and now the grasses and legumes have grown tall enough to brush Kakashi's ankles and calves as he walks slowly towards the house.
"It's Kakashi-senpai!" comes a muffled yell when he draws near. The face at the window disappears and a moment later, the front door flies open. The dark haired boy runs up to Kakashi, fear and joy warring on his face. "Senpai, you're finally back!"
Without saying anything, Kakashi kneels down and wraps his arms around the boy. His face crumples; he looks as if he's on the verge of tears. "Kakashi-senpai?" the boy asks, standing very still.
"Sorry," Kakashi says hoarsely, drawing back and scrubbing at his face. "I'm just... How's your brother?"
The boy brightens and takes Kakashi's hand, pulling him towards the house. "He's still not very well, but he's much better after Hyuuga-san used her iryo-jutsu. The medicine that Hyuuga-san gave him is working too. I think."
Kakashi lets the boy lead him into the house and show him where they had set up a space for themselves in what was Kakashi's old room. The older ROOT boy sits up from his pile of blankets when he spots Kakashi, trembling a little from the effort. "Kakashi-san," he says, smiling. Even though he is obviously still weak, Sakumo is relieved to see that the boy seems clearheaded and alert. "What happened? You look tired..."
The smaller boy glances at Kakashi with concern too. It's clear that Kakashi is not quite alright.
Kakashi's eye crinkles faintly as he pats the younger boy's head. "I'm fine. We'll get out of here soon." The boys nod uncertainly and Kakashi turns away. "I'll be back in a moment. If you have anything you want to bring, pack it."
With the boys settled, Kakashi drifts further into the Hatake estate. The hallways grow more musty as they pass through the lesser travelled portions of the old house, past rooms which have been shut and locked for years if not decades after their respective occupants have passed. Even though Sakumo is a ghost himself and knows that there are no other ghosts lingering around, it still feels as if the past haunts within these hallways.
The Hatakes have their own ancestral shrine as well, although it is much more humble than the Uchiha butsudama and housed in a dedicated room instead. It is there that Kakashi heads. Amongst the disused portions of the house, it is the only room that has been kept free of the accumulating dust. Closing the door behind him, Kakashi's shoulders slump in a soundless sigh.
The shrine standing before them looks like a large cabinet. Its lacquered doors open beneath Kakashi's hands to reveal the usual offerings of incense. The ashes are cold and grey. The shrine itself is plain, with nothing much more than the Hatake crest mounted against a deep crimson background, but Yoriko's headband is there, together with her ANBU mask, and Kakashi had recently added Sakumo's headband beside hers.
It makes Sakumo's eyes sting every time he sees it. Kakashi runs his fingers over their headbands gently, as if greeting them.
There are more drawers beneath the shrine, to store other mementos, incense and offerings, and Kakashi kneels to open one at the very bottom. Sakumo thinks his father would have frowned upon Kakashi for keeping mementos of other people together with the rest of the clan, but he understands that they're just as much family as the ancestors that Kakashi had never quite known, if not more.
Rin's headband is there, together with the red bracelet that was always on her left wrist, and Rin sniffles a little at the sight of it. They had not been able to retrieve anything of Obito's, but the eye he gave Kakashi is with him all the time. Minato's three-pronged kunai sits beside Rin's headband, its edges carefully wrapped with a piece of white cloth, and one of Kushina's hairclips sat upon it. The last memento is also the most recent one—the letter that Snake had given him upon her death. Kakashi leans his head against the shrine's other closed drawers and stays in that curled position, his arms limp by his sides and old grief on his face as he stares at them.
Time slips away and Sakumo senses the ROOT agents testing the Hatake wards impatiently, but Kakashi seems unable to bring himself to move. Sakumo wonders if Kakashi is even still there behind his closed eyes or if he's lost in his mind somewhere, like Sakumo used to when the days seemed unbearable. The boys are whispering outside the door, unsure whether to bother Kakashi or wait, but more alarmingly, there's a strange flutter of chakra heading towards them. Sakumo tenses, unable to discern why or how this new chakra signature has gotten through the wards.
"What's wrong?" Rin whispers.
"There's an intruder," Sakumo whispers back. "But—"
"Kakashi-san."
Sakumo whirls to face the newcomer in alarm and Kakashi's eye snaps open. The wooden floorboards have warped and swollen, stretching upwards and forming a wooden figure, which climbed from the floorboards. "Kinoe?" Kakashi murmurs, sitting up. Sakumo and Rin watch in fascinated horror as the wood turns into flesh and cloth—is that how Kinoe had fooled the wards?
Kinoe shuffles his feet, his large eyes wide with guilt as he takes in the bruised skin under Kakashi's eye. "I'm so sorry, senp- Kakashi-san," he says, his gaze dropping to the ground in shame.
Kakashi smiles wearily. "You can still call me senpai."
Kinoe covers his face with his hands, too overcome with emotion to speak, but Sakumo can see the way his chin wobbles dangerously. "I-I'll make it up to you, senpai, anything you want me to do," Kinoe promises, his breath stuttering.
"Hey, it's okay," Kakashi murmurs, getting up onto his feet to approach the younger shinobi. "You don't need to do that. You were in a difficult situation yourself. And... You could have sneaked past the wards the whole time but you didn't tell Danzou. Thank you."
"It's... I didn't want the others to get hurt," Kinoe admits in a whisper.
Kakashi looks very proud of him and so is Sakumo. It's not easy to break out of ROOT's indoctrination, and it a painful process, but Kinoe finally thinking for himself.
"What are we going to do, senpai?" Kinoe asks, looking up at Kakashi with red-rimmed eyes. "There are so many shinobi are waiting outside."
Giving Kinoe's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, Kakashi turns back to the Hatake shrine and closes it. Bending down, he looks over the mementos of his friends again. Kakashi has always kept Snake's letter here with the rest of his mementos, having memorised and grieved over it long ago, but today he takes it and slips into his pocket.
"Let's go," he says as he straightens. "Inoichi should be here already."