When Time Stops
Chapter 3:Bulletproof Cardboard
"Ack!" Hinata cried as she took a deep kunai in the shoulder and fell to her knees, clutching the wound. Shikamaru scowled in focus, trying to hold four of the Kumo jounin and catch the fifth who had attacked Hinata. 'Damn it Naruto, how long does it take to go fetch a scroll?' He thought to himself. Hinata's attacker, a well built man with long hair covering half his face and holding two blades turned and started running towards him, a malevolent smirk on his lips.
"Hinata?" Shikamaru yelled nervously, "Do you think you could get up, please, NOW?"
This was it. Hopefully Naruto could finish the mission without them. They had run into strong resistance in Kumogakure. As thought, they had been attacked, but they hadn't expected so many. In order to complete the mission, they had decided Naruto should go retrieve the secret scroll – if he encountered resistance, he would be able to handle himself – while he and Hinata stayed to hold back these five. The Kumo-nin lunged at Shikamaru, blades already in motion.
"Naruto!" Shikamaru yelled in shock, eyes wide. Blood splattered everywhere.
Sakura sighed, finishing up the nights dishes and looking out the window into her backyard where a little boy ruthlessly trained himself. He had been at it since afternoon and it had been dark for hours now. He had even refused to stop and eat supper.
Little Kakashi worried her, plain and simple. In the past week all he had been doing was reading and training. She had noticed he'd been getting little sleep due to his dreams that woke him up. She tried to get him out of the house every once in a while and slip vitamins into his food.
Even so, she worried. He was so antisocial and isolated for his age; much too mature. Sighing again, she dried her hands and walked to the back door, opening it and watching Kakashi practice his taijutsu moves.
"Kakashi-chan," she called.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, never stopping his movements.
"Why don't you stop for the night? It's getting late."
"Sakura," He explained, "I have to train. If I don't I'll never be a powerful ninja."
"Come inside. Even ninjas need to rest." She waved him over.
He sighed dramatically and picked up his kunai and shuriken, trudging inside. She ushered him to the bath room and made his bed on the couch while he cleaned up and changed. His bare feet padded against the floor as he walked back out, setting his gear down next to his pack that lay against the couch. Sakura smiled at him as he scooted under the covers. His hair was still dripping wet; she doubted that he even toweled it off.
"Goodnight Sakura," he said, looking up at her and then closing his eyes and curling up under the blanket.
She ran her hand over his wet hair and planted a soft kiss on top of his little forehead, "Good night Kakashi."
The next morning, Kakashi woke to the clanging of dishes in the kitchen as Sakura prepared breakfast for both of them. Her bustling and moving about the house annoyed him. She was a morning person; he was not. He sat up groggily and rubbed his face awake, his hand lingering a moment over his mouth.
He picked up his blankets as he would no longer be staying with Sakura, and shuffled to the table where the pink-haired ninja set out a bowl of food before him. He poked around at it, eating slowly.
"Eat up, Kakashi-chan," Sakura encouraged, messing through his hair as she passed towards her bedroom, "We've got some errands to do this morning before Naruto comes back."
"Hai," he called, quickly finishing up and changing into his ninja clothes. He swung his pack over his shoulders. He was to go home with his brother after meeting him at the gate.
A little while later, they were walking down the path towards the academy, a path he remembered from walking to the park with Naruto a few months previous. They walked through the ninja academy, Kakashi looking around curiously as they went down the hallway and wondering what went on behind the closed doors. He resisted the urge and dutifully followed behind Sakura, half trotting to keep up with her long strides.
"Tenten!" Sakura suddenly called; a large smile in her voice.
Kakashi peeked around here curiously and saw another kunoichi about the same age as his Sakura. She waved enthusiastically back at Sakura. The girl had dark brown hair pulled into two Chinese style buns, a white, high collared blouse and red hakama pants.
"Hi Sakura!" the girl called as Kakashi and Sakura stopped in front of her, "I haven't seen you in a while." Finally seeming to notice little Kakashi, she paused, somewhat taken aback, "H-hi Kakashi-chan, how are you?"
He stared back blankly.
"Kakashi," Sakura turned to him, pulling out an envelope from her pocket, "Would you mind delivering this letter for me?" She smiled brightly and he tentatively took it from her hand. "It will be your first mission! Please make sure it's delivered to Iruka-sensei, room 3-B."
Kakashi developed a look of determination, his eyes gleaming in hidden excitement. He gave a sharp nod before running past the two girls to complete his important assignment.
"Wow," Tenten whispered, "Is that really him?"
The two watched him down the hallway until he turned the corner out of sight.
"Yeah…It's him." Sakura replied fondly before the two started catching up.
Kakashi slowed a moment later as he came upon classroom 3-B. He wondered what they were learning behind that door. Surely something very important; it was, after all, the third year class. These students would be graduating at the end of the year to join their genin teams. Yes, they must be learning something very important, and he wanted to know. Slowly, silently he slid the door open a crack and peeked an eye through, seeing a stadium of students behind desks, some paying attention, some not, while a teacher, Iruka he assumed, gave a lecture. They seemed to be discussing ninja tactics.
"So, class," the teacher directed, turning away from his writing on the board (which Kakashi, unfortunately, couldn't quite make out) and scanned his students, "who knows what to do if you suspect that your team is being followed by a group of three rouge ninja that are of jounin level?"
Several hands in the class shot up. One paper ball flew across the room.
"Sano?"
The boy thought a moment, fidgeting in his seat a bit, "Wouldn't you turn around and attack them? We would outnumber them, I mean, with our sensei."
"No, as genin you should never knowing and openly attack unknown ninja of jounin or higher levels. Even with your sensei, you would be easily outnumbered. Mikoto?"
"Well I think the best course of action would be to cover your trail and hide until you can decide the best course of action. Maybe they'll even pass you and not notice." She nodded, approving of her own answer.
"Ninja of that level would never pass you by unless they were trying to trick you. None of you would be able to hide well enough to be completely undetected either." Iruka corrected, searching the room for more hands.
Several hands went down, obviously having a similar idea.
The teacher sighed, "The correct action to take would be-"
"To choose a suitable area where the ninja will pass through that provides suitable cover for your team and to set several traps in the 'kill zone.' You then hide downwind until the ninjas run into the trap. At that time, your team should dambush the jounin team, hopefully catching them off guard and giving you the advantage." Kakashi cut off the teacher and explained with a serious look from the open doorway.
Everyone stared at him, shocked that such a young boy would have an answer that complex and well thought out. Iruka was amazed on an entirely different spectrum. He had of course, heard that Kakashi had been turned into a child again due to some strange jutsu, but he had yet to actually see his old friend.
"Kakashi," Iruka stuttered, "that is…correct."
There were many cries of disbelief and dismay that a child a third of their age had gotten the answer right.
"Iruka-sensei! There's no way that twerp got the answer right and none of us did!" A boy cried out angrily.
"Maybe if you would pay better attention in class you'd get the answer right. Kakashi has, obviously, done his homework." Iruka rebuke his students.
After his students had sufficiently quieted, he turned back to the silver-haired boy standing in the door.
"What are you doing here anyways, Kakashi-kun?" It was so strange to call someone who should have been his own age – who was his superior – that name when he was really only a small child.
"I have a mission to deliver this letter to you, Iruka-san." He reported gravely, delivering it to the teacher's hand.
Iruka hummed to himself, opening and reading the letter before folding it back and setting it on his desk.
"Alright, thank you Kakashi, message received." He smiled as the boy's blank face.
Kakashi nodded once before spinning on his heel and marching out the door. Kakashi couldn't help but overhear the academy students whispering in astonishment at how young of a ninja he was; 'younger than even Uchiha Itachi,' whoever the hell that was. He made a note to find out. He closed the door and started down the hallways back towards Sakura, instead taking only a few steps and running into her. He berated himself for not paying more attention, like a ninja should.
"All done?"
He nodded seriously, looking up at her.
"Good job," She smiled and ruffled his hair. "Now..." the kunoichi started, looking to a clock hanging over a nearby door, "we should get to the gates. Naruto should be here within the next half hour."
They set off, Kakashi, again, dutifully following Sakura's long steps across the village to the gates. They checked in with the guards, making sure Naruto and his team hadn't arrived early and set in to wait. Kakashi leaned against the gate wall, playing with a rock with his toe. He crouched down to examine it and played in the dirt with his finger for a while. Growing bored, he started examining his hand. He had read a few days ago, something about chakra exercises. He didn't understand everything the book had said, but he wondered how he could access it. Every ninja had chakra.
"Sakura?" He called, still crouching and staring at his hand intensely.
"Hm?" she asked, leaning against the wall next to him.
"How do I get chakra?"He looked up at her expectantly.
She chuckled, "You don't have to get it, Kakashi-kun. When you mix your spiritual and physical energies you make chakra, which can be released through your chakra points."
Kakashi hummed, looking back at his hand and standing up. "How do I get physical and spiritual energy?"
"Through lots of training and studying." She walked over to a nearby tree, picking a single leave from its branches. "Here," she held the leaf against his forehead, "Now focus and try to use your chakra to keep the leaf there."
Little Kakashi looked skeptical, but closed his eyes in concentration anyways, not opening them until he felt Sakura remove her hand and the leaf dropped. He picked it up again, staring at it for a moment, and holding it to his head. Again, when he released it, it fell to the ground. He huffed, "Sakura, are you sure this is how you do it?"
She nodded, smiling at his frustration, "Keep practicing; that's how Naruto learned to control his chakra."
He sighed, continuing to try until Sakura finally decided they had waited enough and there were other things to be done. They again set off through the streets of Konoha.
The two had visited the hospital to check on a few of Sakura's patients and then headed to Ichiraku Ramen, where they sat now, quietly eating. The place was packed, with not an empty seat left, but the food was hot and fresh as ever.
Sakura silently worried about Naruto; he was seldom late and if so it meant they had run into trouble. She had tried to hide her worries, but Kakashi kept glancing over at her skeptically.
Kakashi ate slowly, concentrated instead on pondering what made Sakura so anxious. "Sakura? When's Naruto-nii going to get here?"
"I don't know Kakashi," she replied shaking her head.
He thought a moment, "Shouldn't they be here by now?" His young grey eyes peered up at her inquisitively.
Sakura sighed, running her hand through her hair and leaning against it. "Kakashi …" She had always been a worrier and she knew she was terrible at hiding it. The last thing she needed was for Kakashi to be worried too, and grilling her on the subject didn't help any.
Kakashi felt like he wasn't being told something and worry unintentionally grew itself in the back of his chest. He couldn't help but ask questions to find out what Sakura was hiding. "Is Naruto-nii okay? Did someone get hurt?" He leaned forward on the counter, trying to get a view of her face.
"Kakashi, please!" She snapped, turning to him. He shrunk back, subdued and looked down at his lap. Sakura breathed, calming herself down and berating herself for the outburst, "Please, just eat your food. Naruto will be back eventually."
Kakashi only poked at his food.
Naruto rushed back to his team, having recovered the scroll after running into a few setbacks and getting an unsettling feeling that something was going terribly wrong. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, using chakra to speed up. In the distance he could see the small clearing on the edge of town where his teammates were fighting the Kumo ninja. As he got closer he saw Hinata be cut down and her attacker headed straight towards a cornered and defenseless Shikamaru. Naruto growled audibly, forcing as much chakra as he could to his feet to give him heightened speed.
He would not let his comrades die because he was too slow. He simply wouldn't allow it.
He jumped from the last rooftop, running so fast that everything was a blur. Faster and faster. The only thing he could see was the distance between Shikamaru and the Kumo-nin's kunai closing drastically. He dug deeper and pushed harder, throwing himself forward.
Blood splattered everywhere, soaking his jacket and covering his face and his attackers. He spit up blood and it dripped down his chin, splattering on the Kumo ninja's hand. His eyes—fierce and red—glared into the Kumo ninja's shocked ones.
"Naruto!" Shikamaru gasped, his expression also filled with astonishment.
"No one hurts my comrades and gets away with it," Naruto growled with feral.
The Kumo-nin jumped away, pulling back his kunai. Naruto staggered as the knife was pulled from his midsection but caught himself, and began running towards his opponent and simultaneously pulling out a kunai of his own.
"Kage Bushin no Jutsu!" He yelled, creating 20 clones of himself. The Narutos easily overtook him, moving on to the other four. It wasn't until after that he allowed himself to fall to one knee, clutching the deep incision in his abdomen that was still bleeding furiously. Shikamaru ran over to him, after first checking on Hinata and ascertaining that she would be alright.
Shikamaru sighed, grateful for Naruto's timely return. The entrance, of course, had been shocking. He hadn't believed his eyes when Naruto had suddenly appeared in front of him. He bent down and examined the blonde's wound. If it had been anyone else, a wound like that could have killed a person from blood loss. Already, though, Naruto's injury was healing and the bleeding was slowing. He laid a hand on his teammates shoulder, "Come on Naruto, let's get you and Hinata bandaged and leave before more Kumo ninja come after us."
It wasn't long before they were off again, waiting until deep into the night to make camp and recuperate.
"Alright…" Sakura spoke absent mindedly, fishing for keys in her pocket and balancing two full bags of groceries. Kakashi stood behind her silently, holding another bag. He hadn't spoken the rest of the day, not wanting to pester the kunoichi any further. "Kakashi-chan, would you like to help me with dinner tonight?" Finally she found her keys and inserted them into the lock. "Hmm," she frowned, "Its unlocked…"
Kakashi raised an eyebrow, hoping they could rush in and beat up the people that broke in. He followed the girl inside until she stopped suddenly. He peered around her, finding a certain blond ninja sitting on the couch and smiling at them. His eyes grew wide and excited. "Nii-chan!" he yelled, dropping his bag and running across the room to jump into Naruto who stood and caught him, lifting the little boy and hugging him tightly.
Sakura looked on fondly as the two greeted each other. Kakashi was an entirely different person around Naruto. She was glad that he had returned safely.
Sakura had made dinner for the three; all the while Naruto explained in heroic detail the happenings of the mission, using wild sound effect and overly dramatic hand motions. He showed off his healing wound proudly, receiving a scornful look from the little sliver-top who scolded his older brother that "according to ninja code number twenty five, ninja's weren't supposed to show emotion in combat."
To that, Naruto and Sakura laughed as Kakashi pouted. Maybe, eventually, they would have their sensei back.
A long eventually.
Beta-ed by EmpressofEvilBunnies 8/20/11