And here again, the second interlude... I'll post it as it is but I'll have to read through it again tommorow.

Chapter 10: Interlude, of affection

During the three days of the task Kakashi felt somewhat aimless. If his encounter with some other Jonin-sensei was any indication such a state was a normal reaction to the situation. Asuma had told him he had decided to clean out his rooms in the big Sarutobi main house that he hadn't moved back in again since he came back to the village. The big house was located outside the village proper but still inside the village' s walls. In his youth Asuma had complained endlessly about how cramped it was, filled with various cousin, uncles and aunts and their respective families, about how annoying the long walk to the village center was and when loyalty and maturity led him back to the village he had chosen a nice apartment near the Naka river instead of it. Various things of his had remained in the clan house however and the fact that he had decided to occupy himself with it showed that the older jonin must be terribly bored and restless. After all, organizing, cleaning and reminiscing about the reasons why he temporarily left the village must be some of the things Asuma hated most.

Kakashi had always both admired and resented Asuma for leaving. While Kakashi had graduated and become chunin before Asuma, they had both had the dubious honor of fighting in the third shinobi war. Both witnessed the horrors of the worst years of the war, when Konoha was fighting Suna, Ame and the Kiri-Iwa alliance at the same time and the village, cracking under the pressure had forgotten some of his will of fire and used absolutely any means at their disposal to fight back, bitterly, bloodily. Both had seen up close exactly what crimes the village made itself guilty of. But while Kakashi had accepted it with a grim kind of fatality and the feeling that despite everything the village was worth the pain and the guilt it charged its shinobies with, Asuma had finally thought he had enough of it and that the village' s victory couldn't erase the blood that now coated its ideals. After Suna, Ame and Iwa retreated from the war and a year into his father's second reign he had left the village. Kakshi had admired his courage and independence but had begrudged the fact that he hadn't the luxury to even think of making such a choice. At that time guilt, promises and duty were binding him securely to the village and only very rarely, when he felt particularly tired and bitter did he catch himself dreaming how it would be if he left too, traveled far away...

But Asuma had returned, stronger and more certain in his believes, never quite forgiving the Sandaime but understanding, maybe, some of the choices he had made. And all his struggles and choices had led him to this fated day where he found nothing better to do than to clean out an old dusty room full of trash and old memories.

And all of that because of three brats that were probably getting their ass handed to them by their competitors. How low all of them had fallen, Kakashi mused. Kurenai was feeding fishes with her niece looking as if the energy needed to remain calm and listen to the babble of a four-year-old was almost more than she possessed; Nena Tenshin, who had been in anbu at the beginning of his career there and he remembered as a cool, almost cold, always collected woman was meditating in the common dojo of the jounin command room with the amount of success and concentration Naruto had on his bad days. He had met Gai the first day in the mission room pleading desperately for a three day, S-class mission and had then seen him break down in loud sobbing when the predictable negative answer came. He tried to delude himself into thinking that he wasn't that desperate but he felt a kind of itching tension in the back of his head that made him unable to remain sitting in his apartment, unable to read his precious literature, unable even to work on his recent pet project: updating the suiton: water bullets jutsu. It left him roaming the village, observing his fellow-jonin sensei' s misery.

Some time later his aimless wandering brought him near the restricted anbu training ground. He quickly passed through a hidden opening in the high fence. The sight of the familiar grounds brought back a feeling that could have been nostalgia if this wasn't anbu.

Looking at the well-worn training posts, the crisp stretches of grass, the long silhouette of the anbu HQ, he wondered if that feeling shouldn't be called nostalgia anyway. At least he did not have to care for three troublesome brats at that time. He did have to go on pretty grueling missions though, he reminded himself. No point in idealizing the past, which wasn't to hard. Idealizing anbu would require a quite amazing amount of delusion. He had spent some of his worst years in anbu, had done some of the worst missions but that wasn' t all it had been.

When he had joined anbu in the wake of his second teammates death, feeling completly unable to deal with the knotted mess of grief, loss, regret, guilt, horror, pain he had been left with, the promise of numb anonymity had seemed to be just what he needed. Sensei had protested of course, had reminded him of how much other' s had been willing to sacrifice for him to be alive and happy, two things anbu didn't seem particularly conductive to. But back then the hurddles of building himself up again, of trying again to really live outside of missions had been to much for him to handle. He had planned to try one day, when he could work his feelings out, when the village wasn't slowly bleeding out from the wounds of almost twelve years of ongoing war.

For the first few years anbu held its promises. It was just as hard, as unforgiving and as cold as he had imagined it and it was just what he wanted at default of being what he needed. He could fight on in the war, he could protect Minato when, some short time later he was made Hokage, he could forget himself and the expectations of those that died for him. Ravaged by the war the anbu ranks were constantly changing, squad mission could become solo missions a day before begin because two of the three chosen operatives had been felled on one of the fronts. War again allowed Kakashi to rise in the ranks quicker than he should. He knew he was doing terrible things, things to protect the village, but terrible things anyway. Things Minato would frown about, probably did. He also knew they were necessary, after all he had a very intimate understanding of war, had known it longer than he had known any living person. War had been a father longer than his father, had been his teacher before his sensei had been there and taught him the most important and all-encompassing lessons: people die, they can die at their own hand, they can die at other people's hands, they can die at your hand. In the last case your own survival is more likely.

Then war calmed down, Suna retired, Ame was distracted by civil war, Iwa signed the peace treaty, Minato made Hokage. Suddenly the constant onslaught of missions lessened, he was assigned to a real anbu squad and didn't know how to deal with that. Minato wanted him to try again, to live for himself, to form new bounds, to quit anbu. Kakashi refused. Minato gave him that mission: protect his pregnant wife, guard the jinchuriki. Kakashi balked, Minato insisted. Kakashi felt satisfied with the life he had, he felt he could manage, he didn't know how to deal with normal life. Minato's hope that one day he would be happy felt like a terrible burden. Kakashi was content as he was. Content to work for the village, content to watch Minato from afar, his happiness with Kushina. It made him feel a kind of bittersweet longing that he cherished and bathed in.

When Minato died, among his desperation he felt a bitter feeling of "I told you so" and "I was right all along". How could he expect Kakashi to be happy when he did the same thing he admonished him for: scarifying his wellbeing, no his being for the village. Kakashi found himself wanting to play a game of one-upmanship: if sensei had sacrificed his life and happiness for the village then Kakashi was willing to sacrifice his dignity and sanity on top of that.

It' s then that surprisingly anbu betrayed him. Without the war, the squads were more permanent. He had teammates again and while all of them were mere shadows for the outsiders, inside the walls of anbu HQ his teammates weren't ready to treat him like a disposable weapon anymore. There were times when Genma refused to leave him after a mission even if he ordered him to. Kakashi did not punish him for insubordination. There were moments were Aoba just shook his head and stood his ground and called upon his right of seniority which had absolutely no weight in anbu, Kakashi protested weakly. There were occasions where Koara dragged him out of HQ with the others and its with them that he got drunk for the first time.

And even after they left there was Tenzou and then Itachi and suddenly he fought for them and not the vague notion of the village's wellbeing. And honestly, he still lost it more than once, they all did. Anbu was still hard, was still unforgiving but not quite as cold.

Wandering through the empty grounds was strange. Less than a year ago, he had still been an anbu and this place he had called his home a lot more than the tiny apartment that served as a place to sleep. A jumbled mess of good, bad and terrible memories were awakened by the familiar sight. It was on that field up there that he had learnt wind-release, it's there on that bench that he had began to read the very first icha icha volume he had gotten his hands on. It was there in front of that side entrance that he had once fallen unconscious and almost bled out when he had stupidly forgone the hospital to deliver his report. And there under that tree Koara, a woman from his first real anbu squad had kissed him once. Something he had never quite understood, as far as he knows she favored women, well, had favored. She had died a month later on a mission.

It was hard to say really if he longed to be here again or if he was relieved to have escaped it. He was probably biased and hypocritical about it. He had turned a deaf ear on all of those who had criticized him for joining, for remaining or were just worried about what anbu did to him. It hadn't always been that bad and anyway he was realistic enough to know that Konoha needed anbu, anbu needed shinobis who were good at getting their kind of job done, so even if anbu did not make him a better person, he made sure Konoha was kept safe and if their was one thing all of his precious people had had in common it was their love for Konoha.

He felt a presence approaching him quickly and was already tensing up before he recognized that particular brand of annoyed and slightly murderous intent.

"Tenzo how are you?", he said in an overly jovial tone staring at the cat mask.

"t' s Yamato, sempai."

"All the same to me."

The masked anbu did a full body sigh and suddenly with slumping shoulders and a tired air about him he didn' t seem half as impressive.

"Sempai, what are you doing here? You know you are not allowed to come anymore. This place is technically warded against intruders but I suppose it was to much to hope it would keep you out."

"It just makes me happy to now that my cute little kohai doesn't yet know all my tricks."

Tenzo muttered something that sounded vaguely insulting but that Kakashi couldn't hear through the mask.

"Don' t sound so accusing, I just thought that such a nice, sunny day was best spent wandering around."

"And I suppose that since your students are in the middle of the exam you have nothing better to do than lounge around."

"More or less."

Yamato took of the mask and sighed.

"I may be somewhat jealous."

"Of my students? Don' t worry, you will always be my favorite little kohai."

"Not of them, of your free time. Having three young children looking up to you, several years to train them and rarely anything above a C-rank."

"That' s not exactly how it works. These genins are little devils in disguise and you would miss the higher ranking missions."

"Not like you do. Not everyone needs adrenaline and near-death situations to feel content."

"I think that your respect for me is dwindling. What about a spar to prove to you that no amount of C-ranks will bring me out of shape".

Yamato seemed to think about it for a few seconds.

"I did come to ward off an intruder, sempai."

That was as much an invitation as he would get and Kakashi felt some excitement at finally having found something to distract himself and pass his restlessness with. With a small hidden grin he lifted his Hita-ate.

Fighting Tenzo was like executing a well-known routine. He knew most of his tricks and Yamato knew a lot of his. They had trained together from the time he had dragged him from Root. However, he was good enough to keep Kakashi on his toes. Kakasi avoided using to many chakra-exhausting jutzus and compensated with bolder taijutzju moves. He pressed in close using the speed and agility that he still had on his kohai, dodged the mokuton instead of guarding against it which would use valuable time and energy. Several times Kakashi came close enough to force Tenzo to retreat and guard. But the younger shinobi was a specialist of defense. He was a human wood fortress, quite literally. Neither the sempai nor the kohai tried to end the fight to quickly, they hadn't spared since Kakashi quit anbu but the gap was widening slowly. Kakashi's speed picked up while Tenzo wasn't able to keep up as easily. Kakashi was adding tricks, minor jutsus and the odd genjutsu move, Tenzo stopped limiting himself to Mokuton and was throwing his whole repertoire at Kakashi.

Both were feeling that the fight was drawing to an end and it would probably be in Kakashi's favor. That was Tenzo's cue to try a more daring move. In a second the training field was covered in trees and Tenzo had disappeared. The older Jonin fell back in a vary defense position and tried to survey every angle from which he could be attacked. Suddenly an arm shot out of a tree and a kunai touched the back of the silver-haired man.

"Not bad. "Kakashi praised. "But not good enough." And suddenly his image dissolved into lightning and the younger anbu jumped back cursing under his breath. Before being thrown back to the ground by a water-jutsu and immobilized in a headlock by the silver-haired ex-anbu.

"Pretty good sempai, but you will have to do better next time."

Pouf. The clone dissolved and with a loud cracking noise snake-like wood beams gripped Kakashi.

The jonin struggled for a moment but the wooden creations held strong. Another struggle, chakra enhanced this time and the wood creaked ominously. Tenzo walked out of a tree and pointed a kunai at his older comrade.

"Don' t move, you lost Sempai."

Said Sempai just closed his eyes in his usual smile.

"Cute."

Not a second later two hands shot out of the ground and gripped the younger man' s feet. Tenzo had been looking out for a bunshin but did not react quickly enough and the next second Kakashi had him in a arm grip with a kunai pointed at his throat.

"I admit defeat."

Kakashi immediately released him.

"I suppose the real you is hidden somewhere." Tenzo muttered somewhat tiredly.

"There is a bunshin in the trees back there but the real me is actually the one you caught there."

Tenzo looked somewhat vexed for a second but seemed to resign himself.

"Will you leave now?"

"I might actually."

"Good you know where the door is."

"I will find my own way out."

"Do that."

"Remember to come back from the high-ranking missions I envy you for."

"Don' t die on a C-rank Sempai, that would be embarrassing."

"Sure."

Kakashi made a lazy wave and walked away. Soon enough his feet set him on the familiar path to the memorial monument. He could only hope that a chat with his dearest and long-gone friends would calm his worries.