I'm sooo sorry that it's been so long! My roommate made my computer implode. I'm not kidding; my baby went 'BOOM'! She set it on our heater thing. I think she did it on purpose, because there's a picture of it… Well, at least it was insured… now I have an Acer Aspire One Netbook! I wanted black, but it's blue… And then there's this really crazy story, but if you want to know it, you need to go check out my profile… Well, that's enough about me, on with the show!
Title: Proving Them Right
Pairing: KakaNaru… eventually.
Warnings: After 6 chapters I still have to tell you there's gonna be yaoi and gore?
Disclaimer: (talking slowly) Let me put this plainly, I. DON'T. OWN. NARUTO. Plain enough?
Chapter 7
Kakashi sat up in bed, breathing raggedly. That chakra, though it was watered down, was the same as that night, so many years ago.
"Kyuubi." He whispered to the dark room, as the light of dawn barely brushed the curtains. That name haunted his dreams almost as much as his clan house did, though for very different reasons. His clan house was a broken home; Kyuubi's name meant a broken promise to one of the people that mattered most.
He threw on his clothes and swung out the window, intent on finding out where the demon's chakra was coming from.
~~~~Meanwhile: Hokage Monument~~~~
"You know, it's funny, Kyuu. Jiji died while trying to kill hebi-teme only a few months before the bastard ticked me off enough to kill him myself. I guess I got the old man's revenge. As the only person who actually liked me in this village, I think he deserved that much, right?" Eien asked as he and Kyuubi perched on top of the Sandaime's head, carved in the face of the Hokage Monument.
Kyuubi sighed regretfully. The man's soul had been transferred, and was not as good as it should have been. Such a waste of good food.
Eien laughed at Kyuubi's thoughts and patted the demon's flank. "Glutton." He teased.
Both of them felt them felt the approaching presence, and recognized it at the same time.
"It seems Hatake-san is planning on crashing yet another party. I'm sorry, Kyuu." Kyuubi nodded and disappeared into the teenager's body. Eien put his mask back on and turned to greet his visitor.
Kakashi panted as he arrived at the source of the chakra, moments after it had suddenly vanished. Who he met at the monument didn't surprise him at all.
"Eien-san, a pleasure to see you again." He said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. The Suna ANBU's chakra lightened, showing that the boy wasn't affected by the jounin's tone.
"If you're here for a certain reason, Hatake-san, please speak up," was the boy's light reply.
"No, no reason, I just like the view from here." Kakashi lied smoothly, and Eien turned back to the sight of the village.
"Oh, really, I don't particularly see why." Eien murmured, looking out at the village.
Kakashi eyed the teenager suspiciously, though he was sure the other didn't notice. "And why not? It's certainly better than a bunch of sand."
"Ah, but sand, during the sunrise and sunset, glows like a field of diamonds. People, on the other hand, show their flaws. Flaunt them proudly." Eien sounded almost... angry, the silver haired man realized, and he grew even surer of his suspicion.
"Sand is but lifeless rock. People can change." He commented.
"People do not change; they only pretend to, the person they were is always under the surface. The desert is ever changing, though, and you are just too ignorant to its shifts to notice." Eien countered, remembering who had taught him to notice the shifts himself. Even now, so many years after the man's early and undeserved death, his voice floated through Eien's memory.
"Naruto, look outside. What do you see?"
"A whole butt-load of sand." Was the frank response. A light chuckle peppered the air.
"Yes, but there is also life in that sand." The voice said after the laughter had subsided.
"How can pebbles so small that they couldn't even be called pebbles have life?"
"Because the desert breathes, Naruto, the same way you or I do. It moves. It knows more than you or I could possibly ever know."
"Nuh-uh! You know way more than a bunch of sand, Tetsu-san!" the boy shouted, and the man sighed.
"You may not understand now, but you will, someday."
"-ien-san, are you all right?" Kakashi's voice brought the teen reluctantly back to the present.
"I'm sorry, what was that, Hatake-san?" he asked, subtly shaking his head, as if trying to shake away the bitter-sweet memories.
"The sun is rising, and I was asking you if you had to get back to your duties, Naruto?" Kakashi was not disappointed. Eien, still slightly lost in thought, did not catch Kakashi's intentional slip.
"Yes, yes, I have duties…" He said absently. He was about to perform a shunshin without hand seals when he found a kunai pressed to his back.
"It's been a long time, Naruto-kun. No greetings for me?" Kakashi hissed. One hand held the kunai, the other went to fumble with the ties to the fox mask. Eien tried to move, but realized that not only was Kakashi holding a kunai to him, he had also put something on him that rendered him immobile. He didn't know of anything that did that anywhere else, so it was probably one of Konoha's secret techniques.
The silver haired ninja finally managed to get the ties undone, and caught the falling mask easily. Grabbing the boy's shoulders, he turned him, and took a good look. The boy's electric blue eyes burned with nothing but hatred, there was no fear. Whisker marks adorned thin cheeks, and full pink lips were drawn in a severe scowl. The hood the boy was wearing slid down, revealing a waterfall of silky blond tresses.
"It-it really is you…" Kakashi looked shocked, and didn't feel the approach of an unfamiliar chakra signal until it was too late. The last thing he saw were those petal-soft lips turning up into a cruel smile before his world fell to darkness.
"Thank you, Haku. I was worried that we would have to make some severe changes to our plans. Now we only have to make minor ones." Eien turned towards his oldest friend, who grinned behind his own porcelain mask.
"Eien, if you keep this up, I'm going to have to spank you again." The older boy teased, and Eien growled threateningly.
Haku was referring to just after the time they had met. Haku, only seven then, had announced that he didn't believe that such a shrimp could be their leader. He had proven how weak the then-four-year-old was by pulling down his pants, drawing him easily over his knee, and giving the squalling child ten sound smacks to his bare bottom.
Kyuubi though that this would be a good lesson on humility, and allowed it. The rest of the group found it insanely funny, and brought it up whenever they could, much to the blonde's embarrassment.
"One time, one freaking time, and you guys hold it over for me the rest of my life!!" The younger boy ranted, tying his mask back on and concealing his recognizable hair once again under the black hood. He slung Kakashi's limp body onto his shoulder.
"Come on." He growled. "This guy's absence will be noticed soon, I want to be out of this Kami-forsaken country before then. We have to go tell Gaara to pack it up and move it out." Both teenagers disappeared in a swirl of water.
~~~~Next Morning~~~~
"We're sorry to be departing so soon, Hokage-dono, but I'm sure the man's family will want to know of his demise as soon as possible." Gaara spoke to the Hokage, who glanced at the covered body again.
The man was one of the Kazekage's guards, who apparently got fatally wounded in a friendly spar with one of his comrades. The Kazekage found it necessary to accompany the body back to Suna, so the whole escort stood before the Great Gates, making last minute checks to their supplies.
"Of course, I understand." The war veteran lied, thinking of how soft this Kage was compared to his father, who would've just burnt the body and went on, not caring about the victim's family.
"I will be back once the man is buried, but that may take a while, as we also need to have a trial for the man who killed him, accident or not." Gaara told the bandaged man, who nodded, and waved for the sentries to open the immense gates.
As he watched the delegation dart into the trees, he couldn't help but feel there was something off about the whole situation, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. Worries of a paranoid old man, most likely.
He didn't know how much those worries were correct.
~~~~Suna: Three Days Later~~~~
Kakashi moaned, finally coming to. He was in a dark and dank dungeon, and the only thing he could hear was the echo of water dripping somewhere in the immense caverns.
He took a moment to get his bearings, first noticing that his weapons were gone and his clothes changed, though for some reason his mask was untouched. Polite kidnappers? Odd. Next he realized his leg was chained to the grimy wall, though the chain was long, allowing for free movement up to a certain extent. Finally he took a deep breath, and his nose was filled with the slightly must smell of hot sand.
Kakashi froze as a loud clanging echoed through the prison, followed by the light, steady patting of footsteps.
Eien, now clad in a flowing black kimono littered with pure white flowers, and not wearing the fox mask Kakashi had become accustomed to stepped into the feeble light that was cast by a lamp that was set by the Konoha nin's feet.
"Glad to see you're finally awake, Hatake-san. May I say, welcome to Suna." Kakashi watched the boy with distrustful eyes. He was surprised when he was handed a small platter filled with gourmet foods.
Then he got even more suspicious, what would've stopped the demon form adding poison to the food?
Eien, catching his reluctance, sighed. "If we had wanted you dead, do you think you would have woken up from your nap at all? No the food is not poisoned, and neither is the water." He reassured the jounin. When the man still didn't eat, he grunted in exasperation, grabbed the fork, and took a small bite of everything on the platter, ending with a small sip of the water.
"There, happy?" he huffed. Kakashi looked thoughtful for a moment before pointing somewhere with a gasp.
"What is that thing?" he cried, and Eien turned and studied the area where the ninja pointed. After a few minutes of asserting that there was nothing there, he faced the man again, only to find the patter and cu empty, and the fabric mask put back in its rightful place.
"How…? Never mind, I don't want to know. You might not realize it, Hatake-san, but you are one really lucky man. I was going to tress you up and torture you within an inch of your pitiful existence until a young man followed us, and cheerfully and painlessly provided me with any information you could have possibly had. I would have tied you to the walls, and let Zabuza play with you as much as he liked. Zabuza has lots of fun toys, knifes, senbons, spikes, and the like. You would be screaming in agony right now if not for my new friend." Eien told his prisoner cheerily, and Kakashi felt his just eaten lunch lurch in his stomach at the casual way the boy threatened his life.
Finally, after a few minutes, his stomach calmed down enough to ask. "W-who is your new friend?" It was said casually, as if he didn't care, even though disgust and hatred coursed through his body at the unknown traitor.
As if on cue, another clang and more footsteps bounced around the soggy walls, and a strangely familiar voice said, "Hello, Kakashi-san."
The prisoner gasped, and pointed an accusing finger at the figure. "You." He hissed.
And then he woke up! Just kidding, just kidding! I bet you all can guess who it is. If you can, you get a cookie! And a fudge brownie… mmm… fudge… Any~who, I'm sorry it took me so long, but here you are. I was fighting my muse about if we should introduce my OC this chapter or not. Don't worry, he won't really be that important, just there to move the story along. I killed him off before the story began, so you'll only meet him in a flashback. Okay, I'm off to go work on my other story, and then a cracky oneshot for Kimiko-chan ^^U Sorry once again that it took me so long… Hasta! Oh! I almost forgot, in case you're wondering how Kaka-chan didn't notice Haku-chan, that's because he was too shocked at actually seeing it was Naru-chan… now I'm really off!