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Promises Not Made are Promises Never Kept
Chapter Fifteen – Feeling Fear
Sasuke followed Kakashi down to the basement of the Hokage Tower, a dark and dank place with a dirty white tile floor and columns of stone that were the foundations of the tower. Stacks of dusty, forgotten boxes sat in a lonely corner. He looked around as they walked towards the center of the massive room.
"A lot of storage space down here," he commented as he did, his voice echoing. "Doesn't look very used."
"Not a lot of people like it down here," Kakashi replied as means of explanation, pausing at a column and turning to him. "All right, here we are. It's going to take a little set-up, and I'm going to need your blood."
Sasuke looked up at him and shrugged.
"Okay…" he stated. "And?"
"I was thinking we just use the blood from your wounds," Kakashi explained. "So we don't have to give you yet another scar."
Sasuke's lips pursed as he looked at the older man.
"I'd rather you just cut me," he stated plainly after a moment of thought, offering up his arm to the man. At Kakashi's questioning look, Sasuke shrugged. "We didn't bring any clean bandages, and taking dirty ones off just to put them back on doesn't exactly sound hygienic."
Kakashi blinked then shrugged as well, seeing the boy's point. Shifting, he took a kunai out of the pouch at his belt and a small glass jar, settling the kunai's tip against Sasuke's outstretched arm.
"I'm sorry," he breathed as he pressed down. Blood welled up from either side of the blade. Sasuke bit the inside of his lip, but then shook his head.
"Don't be," he replied softly. He raised his eyes and made eye contact with Kakashi. "You're helping me."
Kakashi stared at him for a moment and then averted his eyes, looking back down at the blade and collecting the dripping blood in the jar. He could feel Sasuke stiffen in front of him.
"Don't worry," he murmured. "I won't take more than I need."
"I'm not worried," Sasuke responded, just as gently. The blood flow seemed to slow before it continued again. Kakashi thought Sasuke was going to say more, but he didn't. He put the kunai away after a moment and massaged Sasuke's arm to stimulate blood flow, holding the jar with his other hand.
When the jar was mostly full, Kakashi ripped the bottom of his innermost shirt and used it as a dressing to wrap around Sasuke's arm. Sasuke, taking a breath, leaned against the column, holding his arm.
"Go ahead and sit down," Kakashi told him, taking candles out of his bag. "It's going to be a few minutes."
Silently, eyes closed and lips pursed, Sasuke slid down the length of the column and settled at its base, resting against it and allowing himself to relax, his breathing shallow as he focused on it, ordering it to deepen.
Dipping his fingers into the jar of Sasuke's blood, Kakashi drew a complex circular insignia on the dusty floor, then wiped his hands on his pants and lit candles at the border.
"Sasuke," he stated after a little bit, turning to the boy, who opened his eyes halfway and looked over at Kakashi tiredly. "Come on. To the center."
Slowly, Sasuke began to stand up, and Kakashi leaned over and took him by the uninjured arm, hefting him up and helping him into the center without disturbing the candles.
"Kneel," he told Sasuke softly, pushing gently at the boy's shoulder, and the teen obeyed, settling onto his knees and taking a breath.
"Strange…" he breathed hollowly. "You haven't even done anything and it already hurts."
Kakashi's lips pursed from where he squatted beside Sasuke, beginning to draw designs on the boy's skin in his own blood.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "It's only going to get worse from here on out."
"I'll be able to handle it," Sasuke reassured him tiredly. "I'm just complaining for the sake of complaining, really."
That brought a small smile to Kakashi's face as he continued, drawing on Sasuke's shoulders and back.
"How'd you get so grown-up?" He asked as he worked. Sasuke started to shrug, but remembered Kakashi was working and stopped.
"Life, I guess," he replied. "I had good teachers." There was a pause for a moment as Sasuke nibbled on his lip. "That and pain has a nasty habit of sobering you up."
Kakashi raised his eyes to look at Sasuke and paused in his work to simply stare at the back of the boy's head for a moment, wondering about that statement. He opened his mouth to question Sasuke further, but then decided against it and dipped his hand in the jar again.
"Turn to face me," Kakashi told him softly. "I need to draw on your face."
"What about you?" Sasuke asked as he complied, turning his body ever so slightly so that he could face Kakashi, the older man beginning to paint his face. The boy closed his eyes at the touch. "What scares you so much that you have to hide from it?"
Kakashi knew he was talking about his mask and fought from letting his expression change, instead focusing his gaze firmly on Sasuke's soft, pale skin. When he thought he had regained control of himself, he answered with a barely-there shrug.
"Life is scary," he replied simply, absentmindedly. This made Sasuke smirk as he opened his eyes.
"Please," he responded disbelievingly, rolling his eyes before looking back up at the older man. "If life was that scary you would've killed yourself a long time ago." This practically tore Kakashi's attention away from his work to look Sasuke in the eye, and he saw a wisdom and a calm in those eyes that almost frightened him. "There's obviously something in this world that you think is still worth fighting for." He smiled a little bit. "Otherwise you would be laying on a beach somewhere tanning with a drink in your hand instead of helping a total stranger. Either that or you'd be dead."
Kakashi had to chuckle at that, painting runes on Sasuke's cheeks with the utmost care before moving to his lower face.
"I don't tan well," he breathed softly, setting his bloodstained thumb on Sasuke's bottom lip and pulling it downwards to the bottom of the boy's chin, finishing the finger-painting session. But as he did his eyes flickered back up to Sasuke's, and suddenly Kakashi forgot exactly what he was supposed to do next as his thumb moved on its own, settling itself near the corner of Sasuke's lips as those eyes seemed to draw him in.
What is it about this boy that's so… mesmerizing?
Sasuke smiled at him, raising his hand to set it along Kakashi's jaw, his own thumb resting right at the corner of the shadows of Kakashi's mouth. His hand was unnaturally cold against Kakashi's face.
Or maybe his face was just unnaturally warm.
Suddenly, Kakashi found that he was afraid of this tiny little creature beside him, afraid of him and the unnatural power he seemed to simply radiate out of every pore of his being.
He was afraid and yet… he couldn't bear to move away. As if he was in a pool of scalding hot water in a desert of ice. To stay meant boiling, yet if he were to even lift his body out the slightest bit, he would instantaneously freeze. Too hot to stay in, but too cold to get out. That was the situation Kakashi found himself in now, with this boy. Except here, Sasuke was source of both the heat and the chill, and Kakashi had no idea how to escape.
He was unmistakably, unbearably afraid.
And yet he stayed where he was, gazing into those mighty, endless eyes.
"Don't worry," Sasuke breathed to him, still smiling and seeming to be completely unaware of Kakashi's inner, panicked struggle. "Being afraid is healthy."
Leaning up and turning his head a little more, he kissed Kakashi firmly through the mask, off-center of the man's mouth as his hold on Kakashi's jaw held him steady. It wasn't a full kiss, and it wasn't passionate or heated, but Kakashi could taste the blood at the corner of his mouth that bled through his mask at the contact, and he licked at it before he could control himself.
But by then Sasuke had already drawn away, and the smile turned into a grin.
"Too bad you're too old for me," he commented in amusement, his eyes sparkling before he turned his face away and settled more fully on his knees, waiting for the next step.
Kakashi had to resist glaring at the boy, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he tried to ignore his pounding heart.
That didn't happen. That didn't happen.
Wait, TOO OLD?
He didn't know whether to feel relieved or insulted. But he didn't think Zabuza would really appreciate him fornicating with his fourteen-year-old student (little did he know that was Zabuza's job) even though it would give him a great excuse to punch the sword-wielder in the throat for what happened four years ago.
"Are you even interested?" Kakashi asked as he took a kunai to his left palm, shifting to stand behind Sasuke instead. "About that boy that Zabuza killed. My student."
"I know he and I share a name," Sasuke replied, licking his lips as his stomach turned a little in nervousness. "I know that he had a horrible fate ahead of him that was worse than him dying when he did."
"How could you possibly know?" Kakashi almost snapped, slicing his palm and waiting for the blood to well up. "Do you know what happened to him?"
"I know enough," Sasuke stated simply, swallowing. "I know that he died full of hate. Hate for his brother. I know his brother killed his entire family. Finished off a great and powerful clan. And no one knows why he did it." He paused, gazing out into the darkness. "It was better for him to die young. Better to die young and full of hatred than to live long enough to see that hatred destroy him and everyone who ever cared." It was then he realized that too much bitterness had filled his voice, and he cursed it. "He was cursed from the beginning. There was nothing anyone could do. Zabuza did the right thing. He put that poor boy out of his misery."
Kakashi poured some of Sasuke's blood into his own bloody palm, letting the two mix as he thought about the boy's words.
You couldn't know. He thought, realizing anger and sorrow clouded his judgment as he did. How could you? You didn't even know him. How dare you.
"This is going to hurt," he stated simply, pressing his bloodied palm right atop the Curse Mark and holding it down with his right hand, beginning to chant.
A circle of Chakra immediately erupted at the border of candles, and Sasuke screamed, feeling every rune on his body sear him like they were brands as they began to glow, matching the light emitting from the drawings beneath him. As Kakashi's chanting increased in tempo so did the pain, and Sasuke found he could do nothing but whimper and shudder and attempt to cry out as the runes that were drawn shifted as if they had come alive, moving across his skin and concentrating around the Curse Mark. The markings on the floor did the same, crawling up Sasuke's body towards Kakashi's hands. The pain grew more and more intense, and Sasuke felt like his shoulder was being sawed off his torso. Try as he might though, he couldn't move away. It was if his skin was glued to Kakashi's hand. The Chakra swallowed him whole, so powerful it burned away his bandages and finally gave him a voice as the insignias finally closed in on the mark, and the resulting explosion of energy was so powerful it knocked Kakashi back to skid across the floor. The candles were knocked to the ground as well, the wicks facing away from the inner circle.
Sasuke's scream shook the room, and dirt and pebbles trickled from the ceiling as the columns shuddered.
The boy collapsed to the floor, bandages gone and body smoldering. Gasping, Kakashi managed to push himself up and readjust his mask.
"Sasuke?"
There was no answer. Kakashi stumbled to his feet and walked over to the boy, who was curled up on his side facing away from him.
"Hey," he breathed, taking hold of Sasuke's uninjured shoulder and pulling him backwards to settle onto his back just as Sasuke stirred. Kakashi's eyes widened in shock.
Now I understand.
"Now I understand why you didn't want me to use the blood from your wounds," he breathed in accusation, reaching out to drag his fingertips lightly across Sasuke's pale chest as the boy looked up at him through exhausted, fearful eyes, bare and vulnerable beneath him as he realized he was found out. "There was no blood."
The wounds had already healed, leaving only small, thin scars. Kakashi's gaze flickered over to the bandage covering Sasuke's arm, and he lunged forward, grasping the boy's wrist and making him flinch in surprise as the man yanked the arm towards him and tore the piece of shirt away.
"Your arm is healed too, just like that," he breathed, almost angrily as he looked back down at Sasuke. He was on guard now. He was no longer in a hot spring on an ice flow, but back on solid ground, dry and comfortable, staring into the face of a predatory lion pretending to be a measly little kitten. Sasuke looked as if Kakashi was about to beat him, curling within himself protectively even as his claws extended. "What are you?"
"Human, Kakashi. Now, why don't you tell me if your little light show did its job?"
Kakashi looked over his shoulder to see Zabuza standing there, massive arms crossed with Dagina at his feet, every hair standing up and claws extended. She must have been the one to lead the man down to them. Taking his unmarred right arm, Sasuke tiredly rested it face up on the floor in Dagina's direction as he looked past Kakashi to her, and she took the opportunity to dash to his other side, nuzzling him in worry.
Fisting the fur of her thick neck in his hands, Sasuke pulled himself into a sitting position with her help and reluctantly turned his back to Kakashi so the man could see his left shoulder blade.
A ring of tiny markings surrounded the Curse Mark, and Kakashi could almost see the rage behind that mark at being caged, could almost see little hands beating against the ring.
"Yes, it looks like it," he replied before addressing Sasuke. "You might feel like crap right now, but you will feel better in a couple of days. As long as the seal holds, the Curse Mark should stop bothering you completely."
Sasuke, gasping with just the effort of sitting up, looked over at Kakashi from behind his bangs.
"And if it should break?" He asked dryly. Kakashi shrugged.
"Then the Curse Mark will return with such ferocity it will be a miracle if it doesn't kill you outright," he replied simply. Sasuke sighed and rolled his eyes, resting heavily against Dagina's flank. "But that's a good thing. That means Orochimaru won't be careless with it. Now he'll have to be much more careful with how he approaches you, which will make him more predictable for us."
"Oh, joy," Sasuke stated bitterly, swallowing as Zabuza walked over. "I'm glad I can be an unsuspecting pawn in your little game of catch-the-crook chess."
Taking off his shirt, Zabuza pulled it over Sasuke's head, and it was only then Kakashi realized that the Chakra had not burned away just the boy's bandages, but his pants as well.
Oh Gods. He's completely naked.
Kakashi stood and backed away a couple of steps to give the three more room, and Zabuza gently helped Sasuke up, straightening the shirt as he did so. It was so large and Sasuke so tiny that it was more like a dress than a shirt.
As soon as Sasuke managed to stand, he seemed okay, but then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed against Zabuza, completely wiped out.
"He'll be like that for a few days," Kakashi told Zabuza as the man effortlessly picked Sasuke up in his arms. The boy seemed so tiny compared to the monster that suddenly handled him so gently. The immediate and drastic charge was hard for Kakashi to absorb. "He's going to be really hungry when he wakes up."
"He always is," Zabuza replied simply, turning back to the entrance of the basement. Nodding, Kakashi turned and began to leave.
"Kakashi."
The man paused and turned to look back at the other ninja. Zabuza nodded at him.
"Thank you." Kakashi nodded.
"You're welcome."
"But of course, if this doesn't work and something does happen, I will come for you."
Kakashi blinked, undaunted, and then smiled from behind his mask.
"Of course," he replied easily. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
With that, he turned and exited the basement.
End Chapter Fifteen – Feeling Fear
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