~three years later~

"I thought I told you to stay down." Kakashi had his hand planted firmly over Sasuke's face, forcing him to remain flat on his back; as a result, the boy's reply was muffled and difficult to hear.

"I don't need protection." Sharingan eyes met sharingan eye as Sasuke glared at Kakashi and Kakashi calmly met his glare. But Kakashi didn't reply, choosing instead to rake the gaze of his two eyes at the trees overhead and the ground below. Once he was satisfied that the only enemy shinobi in the area were dead ones, he shut his scarred eye up under the hitai-ate headband once more. Gesturing to Sakura to come closer, he shifted his weight so that Naruto, who was leaning heavily on his shoulder, could use Sakura for support instead. The team's maverick ninja was completely out of chakra, or at least, as low on chakra as it was possible to be before his life became endangered. His eyes were glazed and half-closed. In the fight against enemy ninja, Naruto, who had been either desperate to prove himself or desperate to make a fool out of himself, had unleashed a mob of doppelgangers, wasting all his chakra at once on an attack that didn't end up making a single hit for Cell 7. Of course, Naruto may have chosen to make that ridiculous gamble because Kakashi had been relying heavily on Sasuke during the battle. Their foes had specialized in deception and concealment, and to have a hope of seeing them, one needed to utilize the sharingan eye. So Kakashi had taken Sasuke to the forefront, leaving the other two to cover for them. Then, predictably, Sasuke had been viciously taken down—he was, after all, only a genin. Kakashi, absorbed in the battle, hadn't realized the extent of Sasuke's injury until the boy attempted a taijutsu move and screamed so loudly that the woods rang with the sound. Yet battles don't pause for the fallen, so Kakashi had left Sakura to guard Sasuke—who was infuriated at being forced to lie down while his comrades fought valiantly—and he took Naruto with him to bring the fight to an end, a feat which he managed to accomplish even after Naruto pulled his chakra-draining stunt.

Kakashi looked into Sakura's eyes. "I need you to take Naruto back to the village, Sakura," he said to her. "When you get there, send medics back. I'll stay behind to guard Sasuke."

"I don't need to be guarded!" Sasuke interjected angrily, but by now both of them had learned

to ignore him.

"Oh—" Sakura seemed distraught. "Master Kakashi, couldn't I stay behind instead?" she pleaded. Kakashi shook his head.

"You have to do this, Sakura. I need to stay in case more shinobi show up. Besides," he added wryly, "you're not stubborn enough to keep our Uchiha boy here in line." Sasuke virtually smoldered while Sakura nodded hesitantly. She slung Naruto's arm over her shoulders and bolstered him up.

"I'll go as fast as I can." She met Kakashi's eye earnestly with a silent plea: Watch over him. Kakashi gave her a swift nod, and she took off, leaping through the trees with Naruto in tow. Kakashi watched until they were out of sight. Then he turned to Sasuke, pulled out a kunai knife, and held it against the boy's throat.

"I've had as much as I can take from you," he growled. "You may not want to admit it, but your leg is literally shattered. If you put any weight on it, the bone fragments may sever crucial nerves, and you'll never be able to use the leg again. If that happens, you can forget about becoming a shinobi."

Sasuke looked genuinely shocked. "You're serious?" he asked softly.

"Yes. Now, it'll be awhile before the medics can get here. Remain as still as you can. And if you make a move to get up, I'll stop you any way I have to." He waved the knife meaningfully before sheathing it. His worries were ill-founded, however; after hearing Kakashi's analysis of the situation, Sasuke went perfectly still, his eyes shut, his breathing carefully measured, almost as though he were meditating. For his part, Kakashi stood up and tensed his body, ready to fight any new enemies that might present themselves, all senses on alert. For the next three hours, neither man nor boy moved.

When the sun began to set, Sasuke's stomach rumbled. Neither of them had eaten yet today, having gotten caught up in the mission. Kakashi took a break from sentinel duty and squatted on the ground to kindle a fire. He threw their rations haphazardly into two bowls to make a mishmash of a meal. After eating his own share—a soupy but passable rice-meat porridge—he carried the other bowl over to Sasuke, who reached up to take it. Kakashi instantly pinned his hand back against the grass.

"I told you not to move, remember?"

Sasuke was bewildered. "Then how am I supposed to eat?" he asked. Kakashi broke the news bluntly.

"I'm going to feed it to you." Unsurprisingly, Sasuke didn't look as though he liked the sound of that at all.

"Can't you just give me a military rations pellet?" he protested.

"Nope. Those pellets are a temporary supplement to increase strength in battle conditions. They're not intended to be a replacement for real food." He gave Sasuke what looked like a smile from behind his facial mask. "So open up."

Sasuke had never looked more ornery than he did at that moment as he snapped his lips together impertinently, daring his sensei to proceed. Kakashi blew out his breath in a sigh and rummaged in the supply pack attached to his waist. From it he pulled a long, flexible tube and dangled it before his student. "Do you know what this is?" Sasuke's answer was only a sullen glare. "This is a standard-issue torture device only given out to shinobi who rank jonin or above. It's used to get information out of stubborn prisoners, or, less commonly, as a medical means to provide sustenance to a patient who can't take food orally. It's called a force-feeding tube." He paused to let Sasuke view the menacing instrument with a new respect. "Now, do I use this tube to make sure my top-rated rookie gets his meal?" He slipped it back into his pack and held up a pair of chopsticks with the other hand. "Or will you be a good boy and eat it the normal way? Your choice." Sasuke looked furious at being forced into submission, but he unclenched his jaw and finally opened his mouth for Kakashi.

An outsider would never have guessed that the shinobi who took such care to tip the bowl and scoop the food into his charge's mouth without spilling a bit, who held his hand preventively against the boy's abdomen to ensure that he didn't move at all, was actually Kakashi of the Sharingan Eye, the legendary ninja with no weaknesses, and no ties to anyone.

Maybe Kakashi cared more than he ever let on.