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The Third Person
Rushing through the wilderness with no sense of utter direction, Kakashi stopped on a whim.
The sound of a (mildly inconvenienced) voice had called out. The wrangle of clothes and limbs reached his ears and he jerkily changed direction. It had taken him a long time to get rid of his squad, and Kakashi could be persuasive. Having fiddled around a couple hours in the woods already, he moved his body before his mind caught up with the speed. Since this was still the fire country, anyone's random scuffle could in fact be his problem.
Through the high canopy, a myriad of black-clothed ninja had cornered someone.
It was a waning, pin pick of a feeling, tugging once on the end of his mind and then settling beneath his skin. In one stark moment of watching foot meet stomach, it festered and grew — groggy, fuming kind of thing reaching up within him until it overcame his bones like mercury flow. His mind glazed over with red. Anger bubbled up, changing his breaths into hot, quick countdowns as his everything went snap.
Kakashi leapt from his hiding place the second the brute laid another finger on Kushina, silencing two attackers before the rest were even alerted. He was livid, sharingan activated in absolute wrath as he beat them all down with form all over the place, throwing many more punches than was strictly efficient or necessary — and Kakashi was a strict fighter. He wanted to feel their faces split on his knuckles, feel the blood pound of out of their white faces and give back what they'd done to Uzumaki Kushina four-fold.
Or he wouldn't so much as sleep well again.
And he never slept well.
Kakashi's face fell. Blatantly, it fell — blank, expressionless look weighing down with solemnity as light began to stream over the area, littering Kushina's face with rorschach blots. Through a few, unlucky beams, it illuminated her bruised lip and bloodied nose. Warmth trickled over her mouth, and Kushina opted to wipe it over her sleeve rather than spit. Her hand was still pressed into her side, body slumped in a languid, uncomfortable position.
"Kushina-dono…" Kakashi reached forward, flinching back as electricity still sparked from his fingers.
His voice was shaking. Suppressed anger about to froth at the edges, ready to beat up another batch of the men he just broke. Anger and malice was laced throughout his body, culminating in that red, red eye. Spinning and spinning and spinning. Kushina was about to go dizzy just from looking at it.
"Shut your eye, Kakashi. I'm alright. Just some flesh wounds," Kushina said. Then added, "You know?"
And the fury melted into fear. Kakashi dropped to a knee, flagrant cursing reduced to a babble. "I…Kushina-dono — you — I — "
"Wha?"
"I'm sorry."
"Oh please,"
"I'm really sorry."
"Not your problem, you know."
"I am so, so sorry I came late." Kakashi crouched over, pressed a hand to his sharingan, hard. He let out a heavy, muffed sigh. And then he pulled the forehead-protector over his left eye. Immediately, he straightened up, all weakness wiped off his face in a clean cut moment. "How are you? Can you move?"
"Kakashi, I'm utterly fine. Except that I'm poisoned. And it's going to take awhile before I get it out of my system. That's what your seeing with your sharingan — it's not life threatening, you know?" Kushina laid a hand on his shoulder, grounding him. She could feel the dreariness of the poison subside a bit.
Some low quality poison in the end. Should have bought brand.
"Say," Kushina said, patting Kakashi on the shoulder, "What the heck are you doing out in the woods?"
"I'm on a mission."
"Alone?"
"I sent my subordinates back."
Kushina squinted. She pulled back her hand to rub at her side. "Why?" she said, tone high.
Kakashi blinked one time too many. "Because we finished early. So they're heading back."
When Kakashi noticed she was still waiting for him to answer the question, he glanced to the floor. "And…I was heading back too."
"Are you?" Kushina piped up.
"Am I?" Kakashi said.
"Kakashi-kun."
"Kushina-dono?"
"Don't try something that works on Minato on me — answer the question!" Kushina frowned, poking her fingers into the bridge of her nose before slapping it down in her lap.
Kakashi's blank face faltered a second before he bowed his head. "I'm…looking for Minato-sensei," he admitted meekly. He steeled himself for the backlash that didn't come.
Kushina sighed. "Me too," she muttered. "Me too."
Kushina hadn't needed much dressings — most of her wounds were going to go a mouldy purple-green. But that could all be sorted out in a couple nights at the infirmary with some medical ninjutsu, if her energy didn't come back in time. It was waiting out for the poison to completely subside that irritated her. Her chakra was still too shallow and weak; she was unable to mould it as well as she should. And that made her a sitting duck of a target.
"This is the place where he was last seen." Kakashi pointed to the third 'x' on the hand drawn map, tracing it some way away from the dam Kushina had patched up. "And this," Kakashi pointed to a non-discernible area of empty map. "Is about where we are."
"Is this legal? Kakashi?"
Kakashi smoothed out the map. "Ex…cuse me, Mamn?"
"You're ANBU. A troop leader. Can you be doing this?"
"Of course I can." He offered her a smile, reassuring her. "I finished my mission. Really. The rest of the deployment have headed back to Konoha. I told them I had something personal to do."
Worry seeped into Kushina's eyes.
"If I find sensei as soon as possible, I'll be let off light. If not — I'm not going back until I at least gain more leads to persuade a full scale search."
Kakashi shrugged in the small cavern they took refuge in. It was too small to stand up. "What's getting reprimanded for finding sensei?"
"The ANBU are harsh."
Kakashi looked up, facing Kushina squarely. Her lips were drawn into a thin, weary line, the firelight of their camp making her expression turn gaunt. Worry stretched over her face as she reached over to press Kakashi's hand in hers. His hands were cold, her's hot. Kakashi stood his ground as Kushina squeezed.
"I'm just worried. You've done more than enough and you could already get in trouble with that lot over this. I can take it from here and keep looking."
The boredness draped over Kakashi like a curtain. "No." He frowned. "I'm following through this investigation. Konoha won't do anything for fear of getting this out. And the village can't afford to send ninja out right now. And—"
"Yeesh, ok, Kakashi! We'll take this one together." Kushina removed her hand, pushed a cup of tea into the instead. "I dump two rookies in the wood only to bump into a cynic. Huh." Kushina gulped her's down in one go. When she looked at him again, he'd already downed his cup, mask neatly pushed into place again.
"Thanks for coming for me, Kakashi."
Kakashi's eyes widened. He was taken aback. "I. Of course, Kushina-dono. You're welcome."
It had not occurred to him that he had been tailed. Why would it? He did everything, almost everything, by the book: hid under a mask, constantly tuned down his chakra, concealed the very sound it took for people to walk and talk and breathe. He was the perfect, textbook-for-the-academy ninja.
And more.
Young Hatake Kakashi would have been a target for any pretty bounty, no matter the rare kekkei genkai in his left socket. Flying through the ranks after the conclusion of the Third Great Ninja War, he had disappeared from public records only to reappear as a codename on Konoha's black books. Even within the ANBU, he was renowned as something else. Son of the late, treacherous White Fang. Student of the late, missing-in-action Yellow Flash. What was it with Konoha's golden boys and pseudonyms with bright colours?
Self-proclaimed 'Red Hot Habanero' Kushina, more frequently known as the gentle, loving wife of the 'Flash, did not know which of those traits that the guy who was doing the tailing was after. It could be any single one of them. Or all of them. And ok, she had to admit it, that eye of his was something that could fetch a more than shiny price on the black market.
Hatake Kakashi was a lucrative teen.
Somehow, that clean cut ANBU record had gotten out, and he was far too young to have landed a bingo book name like that the one he had: Copy-nin Kakashi. Far too stylish. Far too lucky. And no horrendous colour code. The boy had to be a black sheep even in that respect. It made Kushina roll her eyes.
"Kushina-dono?" Kakashi started, looking back at her up the cliffside. Of course he could perfectly climb a vertical cliff without skipping a beat. What did the kid do all day? Practice with one hand tied behind his back?
"I'm fine," Kushina said. She strained her back climbing the rest of the way up. Kakashi reached dangerously over the side, reaching out a hand for her. "Careful!" Kushina growled as she he pulled her up.
It was already quite a wonder that Kakashi had not detected the tailer. She had thought the extra chakra was one of his subordinates. It was faint, but the moment Kakashi had jumped into her ring of enemies, Kushina had eyed around outskirts, senses prickling but unable to put a finger on it. It started as an itch she couldn't scratch. But Kakashi had told the truth — all of his unit were long gone. And yet, from inside the small cavern before, beside the fireplace and amid the thicket of wood, she could feel that presence digging into her back like teeth.
Warm, jagged and pointed. How could Kakashi not feel it?
Unless he was hiding it from her as damned well as she was hiding it from him.
"So where to now?" Kushina asked, fake-stretching to conceal the fact that she was really out of breath from the climb.
He unfolded the map at his side and peered over it. Kushina stared.
No — even if he was acting, Kakashi knew how to act and leave no openings. He kept his eyes on the paper too long, his hands were too relaxed and weapons pouch was shut tight. He could only see so far with one eye. Besides, if the Copy nin knew he was getting tailed, he'd have taken off the moment he'd safely parked Kushina at a campsite.
Then why was she the only one who had noticed?
Because I did, said a voice.
"You?"
Paper shuffled.
"Me?" Kakashi put it down, attention fully turned on her again.
Kushina lingered a moment, glazed look on her face. She blinked. "Eh? What's wrong?"
Kakashi made a face. "I — didn't you just. Never mind." He shrugged. "This is about where Minato-sensei was last seen."
Kushina immediately focussed. The terrain was slightly wet, draped in the morning dew, a slight mist drifting where the sunlight made it visible. Kakashi trod over the rocky areas, avoiding the moss and long grass; Kushina ploughed through the centre of it. For a moment, she thought she'd given herself up while on guard on every front except in front Kakashi. He'd started signing again. Typical spy behaviour. But of course Kakashi resorted to signing the moment they were nine metres apart; it wasn't that he'd noticed anything different.
She didn't make a remark about it, this time. This time, was when someone was watching.
Kushina signed back, 'Following. You - left, me - right.' She smiled. 'Roger, Captain.'
Kakashi reddened on the line of his mask, nodded, and turned away.
The wind picked up, tousling her hair over her face and neck. Kushina pulled it away, walking into the shadows beneath the trees.
"Now, what?"
She ambled to a stop.
"…What do you want?" she asked under her breath. No one answered her. Only an echo of a sound murmured aloud.
The grounds dissolved. The leaves littering the pathless terrain frenzied with the last blow of wind, scattering them over water that didn't exist out of her eyes. It was all haphazard, all distorted for a moment.
Everything drew to a still, bar the ripples of the leaves at her feet. They broke the surface of the mirror-like water, breaking her image into choppy, fluid fragments. She looked up. Before her was miles and miles of a nothingness, stretching on until infinity. Infinity was a very long, far time, but it nevertheless put a scope upon it. This was a void that always went on and on, the thing that was left when forever had given up. She could walk this place and tread it's maze a hundred, thousand times, and never come across an obstruction. It all grew unbearably quiet. The water rippled without sound. The leaves moved without sound. Even the wind that she still felt in her hair, in this enclosed space, was without sound.
But if she blinked one more time, opened the crevice in her mind a sliver of a centimetre wider — the same dark corridor would be occupied immediately. She did not blink.
"If we do this now," Kushina said, louder, "then we leave the boy out of it." She tensed, cocking her head. "Understand?"
She was gripped in a feeling, light and comical, that wasn't a straight answer.
"Unders—"
A weight dropped onto her shoulder. Her skin jumped on contact. Kushina swivelled around, eyes wide and darting about.
"Kushina-dono?!"
Kushina swallowed, furrowing her brows. The entire world had shook before her eyes, swinging the sky and ground into an illogical mesh as she turned. The wind whooshed through the trees, crumpled leaves scraped the rock and sound of a stream trickling returned.
Kushina smiled. "Yeah? My bad, Kakashi-kun, got distracted trying to feel for chakra," she said, semi-honestly.
Kakashi's widened eyes relaxed a fraction. A small fraction, dull gleam filing away that information. He was a sharp boy. Ninja. Despite everything, all his titles and body count she didn't linger over too long (hell — to be a ninja was to have a body count), she couldn't stifle the disappointment. "Oh. Forgive me, if I startled you," Kakashi apologised.
He lowered his head a little — always so formal, the ninja — and backed away and stopped squarely. It was only then that Kushina noticed her hand: deftly clasped onto his and squeezing in a way very unlike how she'd done at the campsite. Kushina let go languidly.
"No, it was my fault. I think I'm — I'm still a bit loopy from the poison, you know?"
"It's fine," he said, reaching a hand through his hair, "but I have something to show you."
She knew it. He knew it. Kakashi had followed her reflexive jerk and countered them as she did it. Walking out of her trace, it wouldn't have taken much to snap his wrist. Kushina was both relieved and disappointed at the same time. He'd grown up so strong and so much braver than he needed to be. Than he should be.
The ninja world was a harsh one, and whenever Kushina turned back to face him, all she could see was a boy — eating tomato soup at her breakfast table. She'd seen the wounds, far too many of them, but seeing Kakashi work with his ANBU mask at his side — one mask taken off for her convenience (good kami she was a bad-good influence on him), it suddenly hit her. She wondered why it hit her now and not when he was beating up a gaggle of grown men, but it did. Kakashi was exactly the ninja that her generation aimed to create. Most of his classmates could be goofy and lead somewhat of a nicer life. Sometimes, she wished that it wasn't Kakashi who had to stay shrouded in shadows and ANBU and immediate call-to-arms. Just some other unlucky, humourless kid. Just not someone she had to care so utterly and painfully about. Kushina wondered how Minato ever got to sleep, having been a sensei to three kid—ninja.
Kakashi looked back again, brows picking up. "Kushina-dono?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming…" she sang.
Kakashi followed the flattened grass path he'd made. Kushina followed Kakashi. The anonymous stalker followed them.
Kakashi bounded over the rocks, gesturing to the ruins. Kushina gasped when she got to the site, muscle working in her lip. She shut her eyes as if to groan, but all that escaped was a sigh. Coming from Kushina, that was never good news.
They'd come across some shrine grounds, chiselled, mossy and different-sized Buddha statues sat in the undergrowth. A red pagoda jumped out of the green-brown, wet incense sticks down to half size on a redwood table for offerings. It would have been quite plain and bare, if not for the shower of arrows dug over every other inch on the table. Arrows on the pagoda roof, arrows pointing out of the earth, arrows jutting out of Buddha's eye. And nose. And handless arm, earless head, in the crevice that separated his quarter of the backside of the pagoda had completely collapsed. Deep gashes and mounds appeared over the dirt, and it had rained in the eight days. There was no chance of a scent or bloodstain to be found. Even weighty footprints would have mellowed out over that time.
Kakashi let Kushina walk ahead of him, scanning the scene, allowing him to slip a little back and rub the circulation back into his wrist and hand. Something was wrong. Kushina-dono was acting like Kushina-dono up until the moment when she reacted like when someone insulted her cooking. (Which, mind anyone, was quite an atrocity. Kushina's cooking was more than he could ever achieve in this life.)
Kakashi clenched his fingers, quirked his brows and returned before she noticed his being shady. Now that information haunted him like a ghost on his back, knowingness of it slowly settling under his skin and bleeding paranoia directly to his brain. Kakashi was intently on guard again, and he was always, somewhat on guard. There was nothing obviously crouched and ready to pounce. So naturally, anything could be a threat and everything was a danger. Kakashi resisted the urge to uncover the sharingan right then and there. If Kushina did not want him to know of it, then he did not need to know.
Crouched over the most whole-looking Buddha, Kakashi called Kushina over. "Here," he said, gently pushing the grass away.
Kushina's eyes widened. The time-space seal, wrapped around the unmistakable tri-blade kunai, gleamed back.
"I've already checked to make sure. This is the one sensei gave me as a gift, on the day I became a jonin." Kakashi slipped his version of the tri-blade kunai out. Polished, and in pristine condition next to the one stuck into the side of the Buddha. Completely identical. But the words of the Flying Thunder God technique inscribed on the hilt of the found-one were faded and broken by a series of cuts. Meaning neither the body flicker jutsu or time space seal worked. Behold, the Flying Thunder God's ultimate weakness: cuts on some words on a kunai hilt.
Kakashi tucked his kunai safely away, nodding. "Minato-sensei was here."
"It looks like to me that Minato was all over here," Kushina remarked, taking in the destruction of the place again. She wrenched the kunai out. The blade was chipped and dirtied, but otherwise ok.
"What do you think?" Kushina asked, cleaning the kunai on her flak jacket.
"I think Minato-sensei had been followed."
Kushina flinched. "Reeaaally? What makes you think that?"
"It's been too long and there isn't much of a trail anymore. But a fight of this scale at a shrine? The men that were chasing you for information. We know they weren't the ones that Minto-sensei fought. Because I could beat them. And the space-time kunai — Minato would never use that lightly. Except to kill, or run."
Kakashi looked up at her, worry seeping into his eyes. "I think Minato chose to run."
Because if he had killed…well, they wouldn't be having this problem.
"So the question is," Kushina continued, hairs at the back of her neck pricking, "What was Minato running from?"
Notes
So I said earlier that I wrote this entire fic imagining Kakashi at an implausible age in his early 20's for some reason. Even though he's 26 at the start of the series. But that's just me you guys imagine him as old or young as you like. (I'm thinking like 17 or 18 now. I know that can't be possible but whatever~ Older Kakashi means better sass.)
Here, we have more Kushina pov. Kushina pov is sooo ironic and dry humoured ahaha. Probably quite different to how Kushina's portrayed in canon but I want to write her like - proud house wife who loves choosing from the florist what kind of flowers to put on her dining table and also there is a literal samurai sword in the kitchen for her use. As in, proud house wife who everybody looks at and goes, ah, house wife, and not wow done-with-war veteran who can smell fear from a mile away. The moment she married, Konoha forgot who she was to gawp at her husband. And that's alright with her becasue 1) she, too, likes to gwap at her husband. Like, who wouldn't? He's the yellow flash lol. But also 2) she doesn't want to reminded of her being a foreign, bijuu-charged nuclear weapon, she wants to live a nice life and try on lots of nice dresses and punch bad guys in alley ways while holding her shopping. Because yes, while her predecessor and love is all great, she was still bought to Konoha to be the powerkeg container. She wanted to be a hokage-who? when she was young? Like, why, that is so tiring. (But it's alright - she's the one holding the fancy-lettered sign for Minato at coronation day. Behind the podium because she's supposed to stand there with the other Important People.) I had to depower for now otherwise she'll solve all their problems lol.
This Kushina loves her domestic life, but she hasn't abandoned being a ninja for it. However, she's still impulsive and super impatient and is pretty sure she's right 99.99% of the time. Which isn't always true XD. Anyhow, everything would have been great if Minato didn't go and fall off the face of the earth. Kushina only has so much time before this cuts into her monthly knitting quota. Come home, Minato. Ur making your smol, masked son sad. He's like a lost, kicked puppy here. Dude.
Kakashi is just about coming out of his eternal man-angst stage. If the last chapter didn't just throw him back into all of that. But I'm sure he'll be fine. Kushina knows this and is supportive.
So the plot thickens. My fav line in this is "Kakashi followed the flattened grass path he'd made. Kushina followed Kakashi. The anonymous stalker followed them." I don't know why I forgot I wrote this and when I reread I started laughing at my own writing ahahahah. It's terrible. Anyhow, watch your backs guys.
thanks
- earl