I love this chapter.

I hope you do too.

Warning: A lot of dialogue.

Promises Not Made are Promises Never Kept

Chapter Sixteen – Mask of Truth

"Is he going to be okay?"

"The Curse Mark is contained. That's definitely going to help. He should be just fine. He'll just have to rest for a few days."

"Does that mean we're still in the exams?"

"Yes, you are. The good thing is that there's still at least three days left of the second part of the exams. That should give him plenty of time to recover."

"Thank you Kakashi-sensei. It was wonderful of you to help him the way you did."

"Don't worry about it, Haku. You three are guests in this village. The least we can do is make sure you don't die while you're here."

"Haku. Inaré."

The two looked up to see Zabuza standing in the doorway of Sasuke's recovery room, arms crossed as he leaned against the arch.

"Come on. You've been with him all day. It's time for some training."

Inaré visibly pouted while Haku's lips pursed, but they both stood without complaint at his orders. The girl turned to look at Sasuke one more time, who was still unconscious as he lay there, and leaned over to place a kiss on his cheek before walking over to Zabuza. Haku squeezed his comatose teammate's hand gently before leaving his side as well. Zabuza looked over at Kakashi, who was standing at the foot of Sasuke's bed.

"Are you going to look after him?" Zabuza asked. Kakashi shrugged before looking back to the sleeping boy.

"I suppose I can," he replied nonchalantly before his gaze went back to Zabuza. "You trust me? With your prized student? After what you did to mine?"

Zabuza shrugged.

"No, I don't," he answered simply. "But the fact is that I trust the animal more than I care about not trusting you."

Kakashi glanced uneasily at the massive feline, who was sleeping on the bed next to Sasuke, curled up beside him with her great head on his hips so she wouldn't trouble his breathing. She looked so peaceful, so cuddly, but Kakashi knew she wouldn't hesitate to bite off his face if he so much as looked at Sasuke the wrong way.

"Besides, why would you go through so much trouble to help him if your only goal was to kill him? We'll be gone for a few hours, Hatake. We'll bring back some food for your troubles."

With that, Zabuza ushered his other two pupils out of the room. Kakashi, still standing languidly, blinked at the parting words and shrugged.

Hm. Food. Yummy. Okay, fine. He has a point.

He simply looked at Sasuke for a long moment before moving and taking a seat next to the bed, where Haku had been sitting before as he held his companion's hand. Dagina opened a single eye at the movement to watch Kakashi sit down and stared at him long enough to decide he wasn't a threat before closing the eye again.

Truth was if Zabuza hadn't suggested the Jounin watch Sasuke, Kakashi might have quite possibly willingly leaped at the chance himself – subtly, of course.

There was just something about this boy that just… fascinated him. The superfast healing, his sharpness, his maturity… all of them spoke of a creature that had suffered more and experienced more than he should have in his fourteen years of life.

I'm sure you've lived many more lives than the one you're living right now. Kakashi thought as he gazed at the boy, his hand settling on the pocket of his pants that held his favorite book. You've probably experienced more than a lot of people in this village combined. There can't be that much power without that much suffering.

"You're an interesting person, Sasuke Terranova," he breathed softly. "But one thing's for sure; you are nothing like the Sasuke I lost." His eyes darkened a little, and he undid the button on his pocket and slipped his fingers in. "Sasuke Uchiha. I wonder if you two would've gotten along. You surely would've been able to teach him a few things. Maybe you could've helped him. Maybe even saved him." He sighed, pulling out his book and flipping it open. "Well, too late to find out now." Dagina opened her eyes in irritation at him and snorted. He flapped a hand at her. "I know, I know. He's sleeping. I get it." He opened the book and began to read, not really absorbing the dirty, lecherous words as his gaze continuously flickered to the sleeping boy in front of him.

I can only wonder what you will become, Sasuke Terranova.


A few hours later had Kakashi rereading the book again, having finished it while he had been sitting there. Zabuza and his two students hadn't reappeared, but Kakashi wasn't really surprised. All three of them had a lot of worry and anger they had to work out due to Sasuke's attack, and he knew the best way to do that was to train until you couldn't feel your face anymore. They would be a little longer yet.

I wonder if Orochimaru knows what he's doing. Like, REALLY knows. Kakashi thought to himself as he closed the book and looked up at the blank, emotionless ceiling. I know he likes to piss a lot of people off at once, but… he looked back at Sasuke, who hadn't moved since he had been put into the bed. Maybe he's bitten off a little more than he could chew with this one.

Just then, Sasuke stirred a little bit, and Kakashi immediately got out of his chair, leaning forward across the bed. Dagina, surprised by the movement, leaped to attention and snapped at Kakashi's hand. He just barely managed to dodge the attack, and raised his hands in a surrendering gesture.

"Relax," he breathed to the animal. "I'm just as worried as you are."

He wondered how truthful that statement really was as Dagina snorted at him and accepted the response, turning her attention back to her master. Kakashi, seeing that he was no longer a threat, did the same.

Slowly, Sasuke turned his head towards Kakashi and wearily opened his eyes, the orbs contracting with the bright light in the room.

"Sasuke…?" The older man breathed softly. "Sasuke, it's Kakashi. You're in the sickbay in the Hokage Tower. How are you feeling?"

Sasuke didn't answer right away. It didn't even seem like he heard the older ninja. Instead, he softly smiled, and raised a weary hand to touch Kakashi's cheek softly with his fingertips, to the side of the man's mouth closest to him.

"Mask…" he breathed softly, serenely, still smiling and barely cohesive. Kakashi's eyes widened – not with the fact that Sasuke was still delirious – but with shock. His hand trembling, it rose, and covered Sasuke's tiny hand, holding the boy's palm to his face.

"Mask…" he whispered hoarsely, his heart wrenching in his chest. He bit his lip and felt his chest quiver with the urge to cry out. "Yes. Yes, Sasuke. Mask, mask, mask…"

Sasuke closed his eyes and fell back asleep, and as his hand lost its strength and turned limp beneath Kakashi's own, he still held it up; still held it to his face.

His mouth opening beneath the mask in a silent, anguished cry, Kakashi seated himself back into the chair and leaned over, burying his face into the blankets next to the boy as he silently began to sob, the boy's hand still pressed against his face.


A little while later, Zabuza, Inaré, and Haku hadn't shown back up yet, and Kakashi was grateful for it. He sat there, book forgotten on the bed, and held Sasuke's hand in both of his, his single eye still red from the tears.

But he was silent. He couldn't bear to say it out loud, should someone be close enough to hear.

Or maybe he was just simply too afraid to say it himself.

"Wake up, Sasuke," he breathed, voice weak and still a little shaky. "Please."

As if on his command, Sasuke grunted softly, his eyes shifting beneath the lids. Kakashi immediately released his hand and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his single visible eye and regaining his composure. The cloudiness that had been inside of Sasuke's eyes when he had awoken the first time was gone as he opened them. He winced, shifting a little in his bed.

"Ah… Kakashi?" He asked softly. "What're you doing here? Where are Haku and Inaré? And Zabuza?"

"They're out training," he replied nonchalantly, turning a page of the book he was pretending to be engrossed in. "I've been put in charge of guarding you to make sure no one kidnaps and or kills and or rapes you, seeing as how apparently I am the only ninja in this village who has nothing better to do with his life besides watch a sleeping genin and his pet cat." He looked up at Sasuke with a disinterested eye and Sasuke smirked slightly in amusement. He looked at Dagina, who had been nuzzling him wildly since he awoke, and hugged her tightly, scratching her fiercely behind the ears.

"Hey there my dear," he breathed to the animal softly before using her to help him get up into a sitting position, leaning against the pillows. Dagina, purring loudly, settled her head in his lap. Petting her absentmindedly, he looked over at Kakashi with an amused twinkle in his tired eyes. "Well, thank you so much for your vigilance. You've done a fine job. I have neither been kidnapped nor killed nor raped as far as I can tell." He yawned, lifting his arms into the air as he stretched. "Ah… how long was I asleep?"

"Almost an entire day," Kakashi replied, still looking at the boy, his expression guarded now. "Your team will be back soon, but before they arrive, I would like to tell you a story." Sasuke cocked his head, blinking at the man in attentiveness. "I've been sitting here reading the same Icha Icha for over four hours. I feel like the least I deserve is being paid attention to for a little while."

After all, he had been rehearsing the story inside his head for the past hour and the gods knew he wasn't going to just let all of that preparation go to waste-

Sasuke laughed, leaning over to rest his weight on Dagina's large head. Crossing his arms beneath his chin, he shrugged at Kakashi.

"Okay then," he stated. "I suppose I can't really run out of here screaming in denial. Go ahead."

Kakashi closed the book with a barely-there nervous sigh, running his thumb along the spine.

"It's about the boy your teacher killed," he said plainly, looking down at the novel. "About the boy who shares your name. I remember you saying that you didn't know a lot about him and, well, I feel like we should change that." He looked up at Sasuke, searching for some kind of reaction. "Before he was born, I had been in the Anbu Elite Forces for just a few years until I was assigned a teenager as a partner. A prodigy from the Uchiha clan. Sasuke's older brother Itachi."

"The man who murdered everyone," Sasuke stated. Not a question. Simply a statement of fact. Kakashi nodded.

"Yes," he replied. "When he was assigned, he was given a lot of solo missions. Mostly because right before he had been assigned, I had broken my leg in a mission that had left my previous partner very much dead, so while he did the job I couldn't do, I really couldn't do anything else except mope around my house and read porn." Sasuke laughed at this, and Kakashi shrugged. "Well, as it turned out, Itachi had an infant little brother, called Sasuke." His eyes glazed over as he remembered, and Sasuke looked away at the far wall. "He wasn't destined for the best home life. His father was chief of police for the city, so he was always out on business, and his mother was the head of some country club or whatever for the ladies of the clan, so she was never really around either. So one day, I'm sitting around my house, and Itachi comes by before he's supposed to go on a mission." Kakashi chuckled, shaking his head at the memory. "He says to me, 'Kakashi. You need to watch my younger brother. My parents are idiots.'" He laughed, and Sasuke smiled in disbelief, his eyes almost shining. Kakashi shrugged. "So… I did. At the very least it would mean a change of scenery, and even though I hated the idea of watching a kid, it was Itachi who asked, and being Anbu partners basically meant we were hetero lifemates until one of us died. So I, a non-Uchiha, enter the Uchiha compound, go into Itachi's house, and spend the next half hour staring at this strange bundle of blankets and fat that did nothing but eat, sleep, poop and cry." He shrugged as Sasuke simply gazed at him, almost in awe. "For the first few weeks, I hated the thing. I never knew what it wanted or why it did what it did. There was one day I spent three hours picking up keys that it dropped over and over again just because it liked the sound of them hitting the wooden floor. If I just left them on the floor or set them on the table it would start shrieking at the top of its lungs. I could tell Sasuke's parents hated the idea of an outsider watching their son, but there was really no one else. My leg was broken. I could do nothing except babysit. Plus whenever I did babysit Itachi would always bring me the barbecue pork form Ichiraku. That part was nice." He nodded in relish, and Sasuke laughed, scratching at Dagina's head absently as he listened. "After a while though, I began to notice things about the baby. Like whenever it was hungry, the screaming was a constant, assaulting wail. When it was thirsty, same thing, except a lower pitch. When it wanted to be picked up, it was the terrible, agonizing mewl. Or if it wanted to play, it would somehow get really annoying hiccups and giggle insistently at me." Kakashi nodded to himself. "We learned to communicate with each other. I even began to like the baby. And I just knew that the way that baby acted with me was different than how it acted with its family. We knew each other. We understood each other. We were equally simple creatures. Whenever I would walk into the house, Sasuke would start screaming at the top of his lungs until one of his family handed him to me. His father didn't like that. Not one bit." He shook his head, and Sasuke pouted at the idea. "Eventually though, I got kicked out. I wasn't allowed to visit Sasuke anymore, and his mother cleaned up her schedule so she could spend more time with him. For eight years I didn't see him again.

"When I was forbidden to see Sasuke, something changed in Itachi. He became colder. Talked less. Even seemed to eat less. He became paler, and he got even stronger as he became less and less like Itachi and more and more like a monster. Over the next eight years, I watched him transform into something that I still can barely believe even exists." He took a deep breath to calm the storm in his heart, and Sasuke gazed up at him in silent, disquieted sadness, patiently waiting for Kakashi to continue. "One night, he comes to my house, and he tells me…" He swallowed at the memory. "He tells me, 'Kakashi, it's not the same anymore. It hasn't been the same.'" He took a shaky breath. "'I'm leaving now, Kakashi. I'm leaving, and Sasuke is going to need you. You'll be the only one he has left. You need to watch him; take care of him. His parents are idiots.'" Kakashi shook his head again. "And then he gave me a… a cold, sad smile. 'Save him, Kakashi. I'm counting on you.'" Kakashi snapped his fingers. "And then he was gone. Just like that. Later than night, we received news that the entire clan had been slaughtered. Except for that one little boy." Kakashi lifted his eyes, locking his gaze with Sasuke's. Sasuke's hands were in tight fists where they sat under his armpits, his lips pursed and gaze quivering beneath Kakashi's eyes.

"That's… that's so sad," he managed weakly, his eyes never leaving Kakashi's face. Kakashi nodded.

"Yes, it was," he agreed. "The boy was a poor wreck. Crying and covered in blood and screaming that it was all his fault. The medics had to knock him unconscious so he wouldn't claw his own eyes out." Kakashi chewed at his bottom lip. "I begged the Hokage to let me take the boy in. I knew he needed me; I knew I was the only one that boy had left, even if he didn't remember me. But I couldn't." Kakashi's voice turned angry and bitter. "Sasuke's father, Fugaku, had explicitly written in his will that if something should happen to him and his wife, no one would touch his children or treat them like they were someone else's sons. They got the house sure, but no family to fill it. They could receive supplies from the city, but no one could live with them. I knew it was because of Fugaku's jealousy that he could never be as close to his son as I had been." Kakashi sighed. "I was the reason that boy was left alone. No one could help him. No one could tell him that he wasn't alone, because he was. The Hokage couldn't allow me to intervene in the boy's life, so I was left to watch from the sidelines, hating his father the entire time." He looked back down at the book he still held in his hands, stroking the spine as he remembered. "I loved that little boy. Not many people knew that I had such a personal relationship with a baby. They all thought I was just being a hermit in my house; the Hokage helped me keep it quiet, but…" he scratched an itch on his face, unable to look at Sasuke. "I could never forgive myself for not being there. Itachi had told me to keep watch on him, and I failed. I could only watch from a distance, and Sasuke could never know. I dropped out of Anbu shortly after the incident. Before I knew it though, the boy was in ninja school, he passed at the top of his class, and suddenly they were looking for teachers for the new graduates." Kakashi smiled. "It was then I managed to find a loophole in Fugaku's will. It said no one could treat his children like they were their own, but it didn't say anything about taking care of them from a professional point of view. So I went to the Hokage and begged him to let me be the teacher of Team Seven. He relented, and I found myself happier than I had been since Sasuke had been a baby almost ten years before." Kakashi looked up at Sasuke, smiled pleasantly. "And then he was murdered. Just like that. The first time we stepped out of the village together as teacher and student. After all that struggling to be there for him… I wasn't after all." Troubled, he looked away. Sasuke gazed at him uneasily, threading Dagina's fur in between his fingers. "Your teacher killed a ten-year-old kid. And he feels joy at the memory." He looked up at Sasuke, studying him. "How can you trust a man like that so completely?"

Sasuke blinked at him, his expression unreadable.

"Zabuza's changed since you came across him four years ago," he stated simply, as if that explained everything. "So what happened?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow at him. "What happened? To make the dad kick you out? What happened to get him so mad at you?"

Kakashi smiled. He had been hoping Sasuke would ask that.

"I had been with the baby for about eight months," he replied. "My leg was healed, but I was still getting the strength back – or at least, that was the lie I told, so while Sasuke was sleeping I would exercise in his room as I watched him." His quiet smile widened. "One day, Sasuke was just waking up, and I took him out of his crib and held him, talking to him as he woke up." He chuckled, that smile never leaving his face. "He was actually a really cute little baby after I remembered that earplugs exist. I could tell he would be as sharp as a tack one day. He would just be a little slow getting there. But that day, as I was talking to him, he woke up and smiled at me." Kakashi gazed at the book in his hands as he remembered, his single eye beaming. "And he reached up, touched my face, and spoke his first word." Looking up at Sasuke, he smiled, touching his face right where he had been touched before. "'Mask'. Of course, he couldn't pronounce the 'k', so it was more like 'mash', but I understood. And I also realized that under no circumstances could his parents ever find out that was his first word. So I smiled at him, told him he did a good job, and quietly told him never to say that word again. Of course, he didn't understand me, but no harm in trying." He laughed, and Sasuke could only gaze at him, speechless. "Of course though, Fugaku ended up finding out anyway, and I was told to never go near his son again as long as he lived. Which, as it were, wasn't for very much longer anyway." Kakashi's story came to a close, and he gazed at Sasuke silently, waiting for a reaction.

Sasuke bit the inside of his cheek, nervously licked his lips and averted his eyes, gazing at the bed sheets around him.

"It sounds like you loved him very much," he breathed softly in the silence. "I understand now, why you hate Zabuza as much as you do. I'm so sorry." He swallowed hard, unable to look at Kakashi as he gripped Dagina's fur tightly in his fingers. "I'm sure he would've turned out to be everything you ever wanted him to be."

"I'm sure he would have," Kakashi agreed with a smile. "And now, with all of that in mind, Sasuke…" He leaned forward, setting his elbows on the bed next to Sasuke and looking him in the eye. Sasuke, a little unsettled at the movement, lifted himself off Dagina's head and leaned back against the pillows, a little further away from Kakashi. The older man caught Sasuke's gaze and held it, refusing to let go. He could almost see the boy's heart speeding up. When he spoke, it was so soft, and carried so many words in so few. "Why, in the name of all that is great and powerful, did you feel you had to hide yourself from me?"

Sasuke's eyes widened, and Kakashi smiled, reaching over and taking the boy's hand in his; a silent gesture of untold understanding and acceptance.

"I guess I'm not the only one who's scared of something. Sasuke Uchiha."

End Chapter Sixteen – Mask of Truth

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

So yeah. Totally went out on a limb here. But I think it's an awesome limb. Kakashi is indeed gooey on the inside. *heart*

Let me know what you thought? Pwease? :3

LOOOOOOOOVES

DDB