A Wave Goodbye
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Chapter One:
Whispering Waves
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A/N: Alright, the prologue did surprisingly well given how short it was. I hadn't expected as many people to be stoked about it as there were, so it was a nice surprise! Thank you all for how warmly this story has been received thus far!
The waves crashed, water cascading over itself in an endless motion of roiling madness.
Light.
Then dark.
Pain.
So much pain.
Blissful unconsciousness followed by endless burning.
He didn't know where he was. Was he dead? Dying? Was this Hell?
The questions came and drifted away with the flow of the water, as it dragged him away and down and into further oblivion. Time didn't exist here. It was just endless floating and the crashing of waves.
He felt pressure above him and wondered if this was it.
For a moment he was scared.
And then the fire crawled back from the emptiness, pushing back the tides, consuming him as a roar echoed the thunder from the sky above. Challenged it. One primordial force clashing with another.
His mind quaked with the ripples of the conflict.
Another moment of agony that never ended. The fire receded and the water rushed back to conquer once more.
He hoped, as the air was again torn away, that it was only him suffering like this. Hoped his team wasn't feeling these things along with him. In the darkness his mind drifted. The flames smoldered in the edges of his thoughts, volatile and unreachable. They almost seemed to whisper to him, before the crashing of the waves once again drove him down into the nothingness.
The fire rose up, and gave way again. The water flooded back, crushing, tormenting.
The cycle went on, powers beyond reckoning tied in an endless duel to the death.
And into the dark he went again.
It clashed against the bars, claws scoring the metal and stone, leaving great streaks of broken tile and upturned filth in its wake. The great thing's form trashed against its bindings, wails echoing in the far corners of its prison. Outside the cage, barely visible where it lay half submerged in the sewer water, a body was sinking. And the beast could not reach it to drag it out.
The creature let out an unholy scream, slamming itself fully against the cage, willfully trying to escape, to breach the protections keeping it in.
The water was rising.
Quickly.
And even it could not survive drowning in a place such as this.
Energy flared from it, frantic and unbridled, desperate for a solution. It did not know what was happening beyond its containment; could not see the endless waves nor the thunderous storm dragging both it and its host to the sea floor. It could not know how far out into the ocean's tides they had been dragged.
But it could feel as their shared lungs filled with cold seafoam. Could smell the scent of ozone coming from the darkening clouds on the horizon, threatening to swallow the horizon. Could feel each heartbeat grow weaker and weaker the further down they were pulled. It knew not how this had come to pass, but one fact was clear.
They were dying. Both of them, together. And it's host could do nothing to save either of them.
The water continued to rise, and the frail body it carried shifted with it, as waves started to form in the shifting liquid. It was pushed against the bars, stranded there when the water receded, only to be gripped and thrown back into the unforgiving metal when the swells returned.
A claw shunted itself through the bars, reaching for the little speck of color drifting in the dark waters. The tip of it caught onto the thick fabric of the thing's jacket, and pulled; the fabric ripped, gave, before catching at a seam and holding fast - the small thing was tugged back through into the darkness beyond. It hung from the great creature's nail, limp, and immeasurably tiny in comparison.
The water began to swell again. Another roar, and great claws encircled the little form wholly. Power unimaginable rose up to fight the storm. In the beast's fingers, a body burned.
And the thunder rolled.
Kakashi awoke all at once, eyes flaring open as soon as he registered being conscious.
His first thought was to check for enemies in the area. Dangers. Threats. He didn't remember being captured, and the bed felt far too soft for something a hostile force would afford a captive. Overhead fluorescent lights blared down, and the smell of chemicals started to come to him. A familiar tinge of forests came with it.
Konoha's General Hospital then. Safe. They'd made it home. For a moment, he relaxed a minute amount.
His second thought was of his students. Where were they? Were they safe? Had Sasuke made it? The Uchiha had been on his last legs, having been bleeding out most of the trip back - the hastily applied tourniquets and bandages the Jonin had cobbled together from ripped fabric could only help so much. Sakura was only stumbling after him through sheer force of will, barely conscious herself after a point. Was she alright? What had happened?
And Naruto-
He squashed that thought before it happened. Now wasn't the time; it wouldn't be until much later, when everyone he knew was still alive was accounted for and wounds tended and the threat was well and truly dealt with. He shifted under the thin hospital bed covers, and tried to sit up, only to fall back in a spasm as his muscles gave out. Too overworked to comply with his demands.
Kakashi wanted to be angry about the lack of control. Instead he felt resigned.
The door to the room slid open, and he went on edge; protesting or not he'd damn well move if he needed to. A nurse came skittering in, cautious and slow, aware her patient could do serious harm if she startled him. He untensed, only a little. A flash of pink caught his eye, and he again went to sit up, suddenly uncaring how painful the movement was.
Sakura had trailed in after the nurse, head hung low, eyes hollow. But alive. She was alive, and whole, and there was a hesitancy in her movements and she looked around the room, searching for something-
Her eyes landed on him in the bed. Rose up to find his face, still half hidden by fabric, to fix on his eyes. Gray met seafoam green. She tensed, and he did as well, suddenly concerned. Was there an enemy he hadn't sensed? What danger ws there? He raised an arm to try and defend-
And suddenly there she was, buried against his chest and pushing him to the bed, head burrowed deep into the crook of his neck where tears swelled and flowed. Arms locked around his neck and he froze. He didn't register her words for a moment, still stuck in shock, and then suddenly they were all he could hear.
"-he's so hurt...so many surgeries...his eyes-"
"-called him an idiot, can't tell him sorry now...he's gone-"
"-was so scared sensei...thought you were gone too-"
And finally he gave in, tired limbs dangling limply over her back, letting her crowd close even when every war-forged instinct rebelled against the touch. It set his nerves on fire, drove his blood boiling, though whether from panic or rage he didn't know. His team had been hurt. Decimated. He'd sworn they'd be safe.
Promised at the foot of his fallen teammates memory, his grave, this time would be different.
And yet here he was, trying to comfort a girl whose world had been torn apart, whose team had been nearly wiped out, and who had been terrified she'd lost him as well. Him, of all people. Kakashi was the last person he'd have thought would matter to someone after his past, and yet here Sakura was, sobbing into the thin hospital gown covering his chest. It was wrong. It shouldn't be this way...but still it was.
It had been a long time since he'd stopped to consider his feeling on things. After the disaster that had been the end of the old Team Seven, and his teacher's death, and the war, and the demon and the endless death of ANBU, emotions had just been another thing he'd denied himself. Now, however, they were at the forefront of things. There was no running from them, not when his team was brought so low.
Not with a little girl brokenly crying into his arms.
He thought a moment, considered, and decided.
Later, he would learn of how his team arrived to Konoha in the dead of night, exhausted and unaware of their surroundings; how he had nearly mauled the Chunin trying to talk them down with his bare teeth in feral fury. How Sasuke was still in surgery, desperately fighting infections and blood loss and nerve damage. Would debrief the Sandaime on the mission and Naruto's fate, and watch in confused fear as the Kage seemed to shrink in on himself and become the old man he really was, face a mask of pain and old scars. Would stand in front of a stone with too many names and watch as yet another was slowly etched into its surface, Sakura's face burrowed into him on one side and on the other Sasuke, leaning heavily on a crutch and eyes covered with gauze, clutched tightly to his arm, small frame shaking.
For now, he hurt. He ached, in his body and his heart. Gently, his limp arm tightened around the Genin sobbing into his neck, and he held her close.
Kakashi had failed his team by not allowing himself closer to them before now. He had ignored what he should not have. Put off what should have been done sooner because he hadn't wanted to risk feeling the way he had when he'd lost his team the last time. But it had happened again, and still it hurt, and the distance had done nothing but magnify it and he had no one to blame but himself. Kakashi had failed them and failed himself.
His hold tightened, and Sakura's sobs slowly quieted.
He would not fail again.
The Jonin had made a promise in wave. He intended to keep it.
E/N: This chapter is un-beta'd as I didn't have time or anyone to send it to before my regular upload time came up this week. Apologies in advance for any errors you may find! A properly beta'd version will go up sometime later on in the week once it's been picked through. Things will start to be a little more focused after this chapter, so prepare for the plot to start creeping in properly!