Light the way
eleventh chapter
Kakashi hid his limp when crossing the last kilometers to Konoha, hid his limp when passing the gates at nightfall and waving at the bored-looking guys standing guard there, hid his limp when jumping from roof to roof over Konoha to reach faster the Hokage's tower, hid his limp when handing his report to the incredibly-bored looking guy manning the mission desk two minutes before closure, hid his limp when walking out of the room, and gritted his teeth under the pain shooting from his thigh when he collided with the Hokage in the corridor.
She did not say anything, just grabbed him from the back of his vest and dragged him in her office. There, she ripped the makeshift bandages he had put around his leg to absorb the blood sweeping through his clothes, and keeping the wound from turning ugly, then began to heal the inflamed gash.
It was only after she was done that she spoke at last: "Were you planning to go get yourself fixed anytime soon?".
" 'was on my way to do that...". His tone of voice made her look twice at the man sitting before her. She was the Hokage, it was her job to use the ninja for the village - but it was also her job to know them, or rather, like Sandaime had done, to consider every one of them like a member of her family. There were however some people she knew better than other, and Kakashi was one of them.
The road-weary man slumped on the chair in front of her trying to sound as his usual self was doing a sorry job at trying to impersonate the Copy-nin. She mentally sighed. Was she pushing him too much - was she using him too much? But as the Hokage, she was not really given a choice -the village was still low on troops, and most buildings were still waiting to be fixed, or re-built entirely. They needed all the money they could get. One man's life was nothing compared to the village and the thousands of lives it represented.
Her stance shifted from concerned and angry to plain concern. She spoke again, more softly this time. "Go home, Kakashi, and get some rest. Consider it as a vacation - but I'll call you if you're needed."
He nodded for all answer before standing up, his eye not meeting her gaze. She did not add anything, so he stepped out of the room, his slouched stance looking more real than usual. Her gaze followed him until the door closed with a muted noise behind him. She sighed out loud, the tiredness of the day suddenly crashing on her. She turned to the windows, Konoha's rooftops and buildings now only shaped by the light coming from the interiors and the streets.
A pile of books stacked haphazardly by a window caught her eye. Iruka had returned them to her earlier in the day. She sighed again. Yet another person to worry for... She had refused him to go back working at the mission desk right now, saying he still needed some time to adjust and to gather back strength, but she had given him stuff to do anyway - files to class, missions reports to summarize and class, little stuff but stuff that took time and energy. She knew he needed to do something, or he would go down. He was not in the physical or mental state to go back to work yet; though she was kind of pleased he had took more time than she had thought to ask to go back to work.
Her eyes traveled over the darkened village. The night had totally fallen upon it now.
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Iruka's eyes traveled tiredly over the bare walls of his place, the window in the kitchen part of the living a black square against the general whiteness of the room, the slow tick-tack of the clock the only sound that could be heard. It had been quite some time since he had used his-his parent's- hi-fi stereo. He found that he did not remember what were the Cds he owned - when was the last time he had bought a Cd ; when had been the last time he had bought anything for him, regardless of groceries, changes of uniform, work-related scrolls or weapons?
He rubbed his eyes with a writing-hurting hand. The pile of paper near his elbow had not grow that much since he had got back from the Hokage's tower. Re-reading and classifying and summarizing missions reports was as fun as running around Konoha backward on one's hands, and took time, but he was glad to have something to do beside trying to sleep, trying to walk without limping too much, trying to endure the reeducation like a grown-up, trying to cook and eat - trying to pretend this hellish mission had never occurred.
His stomach grumbled.
He set his head in his hands for a few moments before carefully standing up and fulfilling his body's needs. The feelings and mobility were coming back faster in his left arm than in his leg. He could more or less use his arm now, and not just have it useless in a sling. His left hand, however, was another matter entirely.
The dark square of the kitchen window grew darker and darker while he quickly fixed himself something to eat, leaving his mind wander around about things and others.
He would finally go tomorrow pay his respect to his parents. The incense and the offerings were sitting in a bag next to the door, ready to leave the apartment.
The dark square against the white walls of his place was like hypnotizing him.
Was Kakashi back in the village?
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His place was silent. His place was dark and deserted. His place was cold and his fridge was looking like his place: silent and deserted.
His stomach protested loudly against the ration bars diet he had followed, and wished nothing more than real food. Kakashi wanted real food too.
But his fridge was empty, and the only food he had in his cupboards was more instant dried food. It tasted a bit too much like ration bars for him. Kakashi sighed in the quiet darkness of his place.
He was tired, but not enough to sleep right now. He was hungry, but he decided in an unusual masochistic streak to forget about food. Tonight was feeling as good as another night to get hammered.
Strong of this decision, Kakashi forgot his pack in the middle of the room, shrugged out of his travel-used uniform, grabbed a shower and shrugged into a fresh-looking uniform before leaving his place.
Forget everything at least for a few hours was very high on his top priority list - just below finding a bar open.
He kind of liked Konoha better like this, he decided, wandering in the empty streets, the public light flickering on and off over his head, a whisper of wind running through the streets darkened by the streets, the ghost of an echo in his chakra for each ninja flying over the sleeping roofs. It was early in the night.
Then it was later in the night. He had already drank some amount of alcohol, but he had been trained to hold his liquor. Forgetting would come with some more glasses of nice, strong liquor. He reached for the bottle next to his glass, but another bottle than his beat him to the difficult task of refilling his glass. It was a young woman, a civilian - and after, the bar was too dark to see more details. She seemed pretty well gone on the plastered way. They talked, maybe. Or maybe it was only the alcohol talking.
They drank some more.
They got out. They got in somewhere else. They did not switch the light on and he did not tell her his name, nor did she. He made her moan and bit him and kiss him.
He forgot, for a few hours.
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A bleak light woke Kakashi up. He was in someone else's bed, with this someone else's arms around him. He got up, got his clothes back on, tied his forehead and slipped it on his eye.
He was... disgusted with himself. Ashamed. He was not really feeling like himself, not helped in the slightest by the traces of a hangover coming his way.
He closed quietly the door behind him, feeling like a complete asshole toward himself and toward this girl who he did not know the name. He felt like going to the monument and mentally confessing everything to the silent stone.
She had shoulder length hair of a dark brown, a firm and slender body, her skin healthily tanned by the sun.
I'll try to make next chapter longer... See you all soon.