The White Fang
Halfway through the day, Kakashi and Ketari were en route to their destination: the remains of the Uchiha Clan. He had assembled his students and announced that he was going away for a few days to spend time with his girlfriend and that he would be back in about two weeks, and if they didn't like it, tough.
"And if you don't like it, tough. Go home and sleep, do whatever, eat ramen until your gut explodes. I'll be back in two weeks. Two. Weeks." He held up two fingers for emphasis and made sure that Naruto had eye contact with him. He straightened up and put his hands on his hips.
"Hey, Sensei?Where's your leaf headband?" Naruto asked, pointing at Kakashi's forehead. In the place of his leaf headband was what looked like a blue ribbon.
"This? I got it from my girlfriend, she has my headband. Now, do you guys understand what I just said?" They nodded. "Good, I think I got my point across. See ya!" He bounded back home and picked up his bag, then fairly skipped over to Ketari's house.
Ketari had been brushing out her hair and packing her clothes when she heard him knocking on her door. She knew it was him because he was whistling while he was doing it, and she remembered the tune as the one that he always used to whistle when she was around; her favorite tune. She smiled and checked herself in the mirror one more time before tying up her hair with a red ribbon. She came out with her own bag in hand and he took it from her, carrying his on his back and hers in his hand, and grinned through his mask. She giggled and pulled at the mask playfully, but he shooed her hand away.
"I'm not taking it off until we're well out of the village."
"But why?"
"It'll keep them guessing. It's entertainment for me."
"That's not fair... what's so bad about seeing your face?" She asked, trying to pull it off again.
"Nothing! You know what I look like anyway, so it doesn't matter. Right?" She nodded and gave up, but unwrapped the ribbon from around his head, ignoring his complaints. "Hey! What was that for?"
She smiled slyly at him and dangled the ribbon. "Well, you can't wear my ribbon until you take off that mask." He raised an eyebrow at her and she fluttered her eyes at him, a gesture that was more sarcastic in nature than flirtatious. He sighed.
"Fine. No ribbon until there's no mask. I got it. But it'll have to wait until we're out of here." She pouted and put her fists on her hips. She reached up and put her fingers at the edge of the mask, then gave Kakashi the look he could never resist.
"Please Kakashi? Just this once? Pleeeeeease?" she asked. He leaned his forehead against hers.
"Okay okay, you win. I'll take it off. But just this once!" he cautioned her. She pulled it down, kissed his cheek, and put her arms around his neck, nuzzling his face. He kissed her forehead and laughed. "Look at us! We haven't even gotten off your doorstep yet!" he said, letting her go. "We should start off or we'll never get there at all!" he took her hand and led her off to the gate of Konoha, trying to ignore the awed looks he got from the villagers. Women blushed and sighed, and he swallowed hard, trying to ignore them as well, and he got strange looks from the other Jounin. Perfect. It was just a good thing villagers and Jounin were few and far between this time of day. Most were on missions, lounging at home, in school, or just somewhere else.
"Can we stop by Gai's place on the way, Ketari?" he asked, and she looked up at him, still holding onto his arm.
"What for? I thought you'd want to avoid him since you don't have your mask on and you don't want him crowing about you for the rest of your life."
"Yeah well... I thought I'd just say good-bye, you know? Plus I have to ask him a favor."
"What kind of favor?"
"I uh..." he sweatdropped. "I need to ask him to feed and walk Pakkun. I said I'd walk Pakkun since I owe Pakkun, but I don't really have the time and... well. Gai likes Pakkun. And I need to ask..." he looked at her quickly and reddened. "It's a man thing. Very private."
She squinted her eyes at him, as if trying to read his thoughts, but shrugged. "Okay. Kakashi?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you remember... during our Chuunin exam...?"
"Of course I remember our Chuunin exam!"
"And the last match for the second part of the Chuunin exam today is..."
The screen flashed above Kakashi's head and Yondaime crossed his arms, a bit ofa frown on his face.
"Kakashi versus Ketari! Step down to the arena please." Kakashi froze in his spot between Rin and Obito and stared up at the screen. Him versus Ketari? But but... she was a girl! And and and... oh... damn. Rin looked at him strangely.
"What' s up with you, Kakashi? It's not like Ketari's super strong or anything, I mean, she's actually pretty weak. You're sweating bullets over there."
Ketari, meanwhile, was making her way slowly down to the arena after being wished goodluck by her teammates, Iruka and Hayate. She was shaking as she did so, her small hands guiding her down the steps to the arena. Kakashi shook his head and looked up quickly at Yondaime. Yondaime knew what his problem was.
Yondaime shook his head sadly. There was nothing he could do about this matchup.
Kakashi gritted his teeth under his mask and swung down into the arena, standing as far away from Ketari as was possible. What could he do? He didn't want to fight her... the only thing he could do was... to scare the supervisors enough that they would stop the fight immediately, that or forfeit... and he couldn't forfeit! Not here! He had to become a Chuunin, if he did, he would be the youngest Chuunin... ever! And he knew just what he'd use to scare the supervisors, to scare Yondaime into stopping the fight.
The bell rang and Ketari didn't move, but stood almost frozen as Kakashi watched her and prepared his body for that technique.
His secret technique, Chidori, reimei! He looked into her eyes as the electricity arced over the arena.
"I'm sorry, Ketari," he mouthed, and he charged. Everything was a blur, he couldn't see, couldn't hear very much, but he could see the unmoving blue kunoichi dress, saw it as it sank to the floor. Tiles tore away from the ground as his feet pounded against the ground, as the electricity ripped it up and away from its foundations. Why wasn't she moving, why wasn't she running away? RUN! RUN! GET AWAY FROM ME! RUUUUN! His feet slammed to a screeching halt and he stopped skidding right before his hand collided with Ketari's head. He groaned and turned around, slamming the Chidori into the floor, and watched as the tiles flew and the energy pounded through the ground beneath it. His face whitened. What if he hadn't stopped in time? What would have happened to...?
Yondaime stood up; this match had to be disqualified, the jutsu being used was too strong, too powerful, too dangerous to be used against another Genin.
On both sides.
He turned and saw Ketari staring wide-eyed at the hole in the floor, and her eyes made a slow track to Kakashi. She seemed awed, but not afraid, like she had known that he would stop, and Kakashi saw Yondaime in the arena next to him, his hand on his head. "I'm sorry, Kakashi... but this match cannot be continued. It seems that both of you will have to be dis-"
"I forfeit."
Kakashi started and turned under Yondaime's hand, the words taken from his mouth. He saw Ketari staring at her clasped hands, her white ribbon in her hands.
"I forfeit."
Yondaime stood and Kakashi felthim apply pressure to his head, like he was turning over something in his mind.
"Then Kakashi is the winner. Kakashi, you're going to the next round." Yondaime went back to his seat and Kakashi stared at Ketari.
"Ketari... why did you-" she smiled and held out her white ribbon.
"I thought... maybe right now, your dream is more important than mine."
"But your dream..."
"Will come true eventually. Yours has to come true right now, doesn't it?"
"But..."
"To become the best medical kunoichi... my dream can wait. You have to be... you want to live up to your dad, don't you?" she cried.Kakashi bowed his head. That was it. He had condemned her to wait another whole year before her dream would ever come true...
"But didn't you want to live up to your mom's reputation, Ketari...?"
"Yes... but... I'll be... fine!" She put her hands to the ground and discharged the chakra she had been building up into them, and the section of the arena behind Kakashi exploded into dust. "Now you have to catch your dream!" She said, holding out the ribbon to him.
"I would never have seen that coming. You could have blown me apart."
"You could have as well... that Chidori of yours... I was so scared I could barely summon my chakra to my hand." Kakashi looked over at her and shifted his pack on his shoulder as they neared the edge of the gate.
"What, the Chidori? It's nothing frightening... unless you mean the speed of it. That technique that you used though... that was frightening. How did you do it?"
She giggled and put a hand over her mouth. "Oh I couldn't tell you that. Only my mother and I can do it!"
"Really...?"
"Yep. But..." she looked downcast. "She left when I was little, and my dad died before I was born."
"My God... she must have been strong. I'd like to see your mother someday."
"I would too, Kakashi, I would too..."
"You know what your dad's name was?"
"... No idea.."
"What about her name?"
"I can't remember. I was too little, I guess."
"Didn't you say your parents arranged your marriage to Obito?" It still stung him a bit to think of how close Ketari had been to marrying Obito instead of... he shook his head. He shouldn't be thinking that way of Obito, shouldn't be thinking that he was glad Obito was dead. No, he couldn't think like that.
"I was adopted, silly... think with that so-called 'genius' mind of yours," she said, poking him in the head. He rubbed the spot where she poked him.
"Ah hey! My father was the genius, not me."
"And modest too."
"It's true... he came up with so many jutsus on his own while I..." he studied his hand. "I've only got one: the Chidori."
She was quiet and walked along side him for a while, studying her fingers as well. "You never had many friends, did you?" she asked quietly.
"No. How could you tell?"
"You're always... were always... shy, and you really don't like interacting with other people. You'd much rather fail all your students and bury your nose in a book. Why is that?"
"Why? You're asking me why? That's... a tough one." He thought for a while to himself, studying the cloud of dust that his feet kicked up. "Well... I guess it was because I was so young when I was a Genin. There were kids in the Academy my age, and I was already a Genin, and by the time they were Genin, I was a Chuunin. Except for a couple of people like you, Iruka... just a few."
"We were pushed up because they couldn't have a three man team with twosixteen year olds and a ten year old Chuunin."
"I always wondered why... you didn't look like you wanted to be in that exam. You were even younger than me!"
"And five times less experienced. I was scared out of my mind. Once we failed that exam, we retook it way later and passed it. You were a Jounin by then, I think."
"Yep... but... I was always lonely... didn't have anyone my own age who would accept me, no family at home, even the adults would look at me strangely. Except Yondaime-Sensei... he was the only one... and Obito, in the end. Even though he was a bit older than me. And you, of course, always you.
"And... when Obito died... I couldn't stand the students that had no value for teamwork, no value for the lives of their comrades. So until my 'special three' now, it's been a rough ride. For them, not me. I've had smooth sailing for a couple of years now, heh, more than a couple of years.
"Well, it looks like we're here, Ketari... anything in particular you want to...?"
She stood there awkwardly for a while in front of the great symbol of the Uchiha, stared at the forbidding yellow guard tape strewn around the entrance. She turned her head a little, her face masked by her long dark hair, and said, "I'll... be back in a little while. Maybe you should plan something else? We still have an entire week to go.
And so it was that Kakashi Hatakereserved a room in a nearby hotel-ish location and was left to play Janken with his summoned dog, Tohru, who was losing miserably.
"Aw, that's not fair. All I can do is paper and rock!"
"Yeah, well tough," Kakashi mumbled into his hand, taking a chance with scissors and winning over Tohru's paper once more. "I wish she'd hurry up and come back," he said, straightening out the pillow under his elbow. His arm was on the pillow, his chin propped in his hand, lying stomach down on hard-wood floor. He hadn't moved from that spot on the floor since he'd gotten the room and thrown himself there. After getting bored of counting the tiles on the ceiling, the planks of wood on the floor, and the number of stitches in the pillow, he had summoned Tohru to play Janken, which was amusing if not terribly time consuming.
"Please, just one more round, Tohru?" Kakashi whined, and Tohru woofed a miserable consent. One more round of horrendous Janken torture. Kakashi won paper over rock and rolled onto his back, blowing his hair out of his eyes and stroking Tohru's fur with one hand.
"What's up with you then, Boss?"
"Ahhh... Ketari went to the Uchiha Clan Grounds, hasn't come back for a good three hours. I'm just lonely."
"But I thought you never get lonely, Boss?"
"This is different, Tohru!" Kakashi exclaimed, turning over onto his stomach again and looking Tohru in his little Shiba eyes. "This is Female Companionship! This isn't like comrade friendship. What do you do when you see a nice looking she-dog, eh?"
"Oh, that all depends," Tohru said slyly, scratching a spot on his back with a hind paw. "If she's a nice Shiba, I say hello, y'know, be friends, and go from there. Haven't found a particularly friendly or companion-y one yet, but I'm sure I will." He studied the paw that had been scratching and licked it momentarily.
"But Boss, I still don't understand your kind. Why not just reproduce already?"
"WHAT!" Kakashi yelped. "Reproduce? Have babies? NOW? No way! I-I'm too young for that kind of thing! Or at least, I haven't been dating Ketari long enough! I haven't asked her if she wants to have babies, I haven't even asked if she wants to get married! And what if things don't work out? I can't have babies now!"
Tohru winked at him and wagged his tail. "Just testin' Boss, just testin'. "
"Oh... oh... I thought you were serious about the whole... reproduction thing... oh.. my God... don't scare me like that again, Tohru!" Kakashi said, pointing an accusing finger at him.
Ketari leaned away from the door and sighed sadly. She guessed he didn't want any kids...
There went dream #1.