Chapter Note: The Okita Estate isn't as it seems, and apparently, neither is Avurin's family. We're going to get into Kakashi's head for a little bit so we can get an idea of what he's thinking while Avurin finds more information about her family.
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"I searched the entire home and it's definitely empty. There are some bedrooms upstairs we can use if you want, they're just dusty." Kakashi told her as he pulled away from their embrace, immediately regretting the distance between them. He knew the death grip she had on the journal was a reflex and he mentally flinched at the contents of it. He couldn't say that he hadn't expected such gut-wrenching topics in the contents of the journal, but he didn't expect it to be so barbaric towards someone who seemingly didn't need to be contained the way they had been.
"Let's pick one and go to sleep. It's been a long day. Let me put this back and we'll go together." She turned back to the door that led to the kitchen, unlocking it and moving straight for the secret passage. Kakashi turned back to the family tree on the wall, wondering what other secrets they would find in the mansion. The home was very old, yet had been maintained over so many generations to the point that even after decades of being abandoned, the only indication that it wasn't currently occupied was limited to the dust.
He knew Avurin was disturbed by the first secret they had uncovered in the home. While shinobi were taught to compartmentalize their emotions, this was a personal mission and he didn't expect her to be stone-faced through their investigations. However, he had to make sure she stayed on track and didn't shy from the details of her family history. They had a lot of space to cover over the next several days and she needed to be prepared for what she would find. He was interrupted from his thoughts as she quickly swept back into the room, almost slamming the pantry door behind her.
"Lead the way," she mumbled. Kakashi nodded and put his hands in his pockets, walking towards the main room. He could smell the scent of the room coming off of her faintly and had to fight not to wrinkle his nose at the scent. He hadn't mentioned it previously, but he had smelled more than just blood in that room. The layers of mixed smells in the room had told him the story of rape, several labors, and overall horrible conditions despite the cleanliness of the room. He had smelled some horrible scents in his days in Anbu but the smell of distress and labor accompanied by the other smells was too much even for him.
"Most of the rooms upstairs are bedrooms. I found a library, an office, and a craft room as well. There are some more hidden areas but there aren't any chakra signatures in the home. We should be safe." Kakashi explained as he led her up the stairs, taking a left turn at the landing. He approached the first door that appeared, opening it for her and allowing her to walk in first. Inside, there was a large four-poster bed with a chest at the foot of it. The room was relatively bare, nothing personal on the dresser or on the walls. Kakashi had specifically chosen this room during his search. "I think this used to be a guest room," Kakashi told her as he walked into the room, shutting the door behind him.
She just nodded, her shoulders dropping as she walked to the bed. Kakashi knew the room was still dusty but they had been limited on their choices. She swept the top blanket off of the bed and onto the floor, instead opting to get her own blanket from one of her storage scrolls. He could see that she was tired and didn't want to worry about the cleanliness of their sleeping arrangements. Since the blanket had covered the bed, the sheets underneath weren't nearly as dusty, yet they still had a musty smell to them. Kakashi's nose wrinkled at the smells that had assaulted him when he was exploring the mansion and had tightened his mask over his nose earlier in the afternoon, especially after their discovery of the secret room above the kitchen. She stripped the pillows of their pillow cases and threw them on the floor with the blanket. Unzipping her Chunin vest, she tossed it to the side, setting the glow stick she'd been carrying on the nightstand next to the bed. She plopped down on the bed, sighing as the weight of the day left her shoulders as she sank into the mattress. He felt his own shoulders drop from exhaustion.
He unzipped his own vest, pulling down his mask to sit around his neck after some of the dust had settled, and completely removed his headband as he settled on the bed next to her. He felt her shift and met her eyes as she turned to face him. Both of his eyes were open, yet he was being careful with his Sharingan after her earlier outburst. He hadn't expected her to be so upset but, in hindsight, he could see why she was. It hadn't been right for him to do what he did without her consent, he just couldn't help himself when the opportunities presented themselves, wanting to never forget the moments he spent with her.
"This wasn't what I expected…" she mumbled. He slowly wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a chance to pull away if she wanted to, before pulling her close. She pressed her face into his chest and a demented part of his mind preened at the fact she was seeking him for comfort. He could smell the salt from her tears as they started to wet his shirt. He didn't mind, he knew she needed this. She clutched at Kakashi's shirt, pulling him as close as she could get him.
"I'm sorry… I've been so emotional lately and it goes against everything a shinobi should be but I can't just stay unaffected by this. My family… a woman suffered for so long so my clan could continue. What else am I going to find here?" she whimpered, making his heart crack just a little bit despite the fact that it was already shattered by his own losses and secrets he could never tell. He rubbed her back as the tears continued to flow.
"You are not your ancestors. Just remember that. You don't have to carry the guilt of their decisions. You'll find that you're not alone in that regard. It's also not expected for you to be completely okay with this. This mission is personal." Kakashi reassured her. She nodded against his chest and took a deep breath. He nestled his face into her hair, holding her in a firm grip that he hoped felt supportive. She smelled like dried sweat, the sheets they were on, and the distinct scent of the forests of the Land of Fire that they had been traveling through.
Despite neither of them having showered since leaving the village, he found her scent calming. However, he could also smell the distress coming off of her in waves, carrying a bitter undertone that made his chest ache with an intense need to find a way to fix this for her. His hand continued to rub her back for a few moments before he felt her sag in his arms. "Go to sleep. We're safe." Kakashi whispered as she finally stopped fighting sleep.
…
The next morning, they didn't speak about the information they'd found the previous day. They had a simple breakfast in the living room of the house, quietly discussing how they would start searching the home for more secrets. Kakashi adamantly refused to split up, insisting on staying with her in the event that there were more traps. He wouldn't tell her that his instincts had already bonded him to her, physically hurting him at the thought of not protecting her in a mysterious and potentially dangerous place. Surprisingly, she didn't fight him on the topic, if anything she encouraged it. The relief in her eyes at his rejection of a plan that involved being away from each other betrayed her thoughts. He had his mission to protect her and she had her mission to investigate, he would do anything to see his mission to completion, regardless of the risks.
"I think it's time that you met someone that will be helpful in the future, particularly in scouting this house for more hidden rooms," Kakashi said as they stopped in the main room of the house. Avurin paused with a raised eyebrow at him as he hid a smug smile. He had talked to his pack years ago about his troubles with his feelings regarding a potential mate and they had been helpful in navigating the symptoms even if they relentlessly berated him for abandoning her. He felt now was a good time for an introduction. He smiled at her and bit his thumb with a canine, making sure to raise blood from the pad of his thumb, pressing it to the ground where a summoning seal formed. In a puff of smoke, a small pug with a blue vest and headband materialized, sitting on the floor with an unimpressed look on his wrinkled face.
"Hey, how's it going?" Avurin's eyes widened in shock as she looked between a too-smug Kakashi and the pug. A talking dog wasn't an everyday occurrence and he enjoyed watching the wheels turn in her head as she tried to make sense of the situation.
"Pakkun, I'd like you to meet Avurin. We're currently on an investigative mission in her family estate. We need help finding some of the hidden rooms throughout the estate." Kakashi briefed the pug who nodded along with the instructions.
"Sure, boss. Hey, is this the girl you-"
"We'll talk about that later, Pakkun. The sooner you find the hidden areas of the home, the sooner we can start digging into the secrets this place has." He cut the dog off before he could say anything incriminating. Pakkun gave him a look that promised a long talk later but nodded.
"You got it, boss. Nice to meet you, Avurin. I'll find you after I've done a thorough search. Could take a while, just summon me if you need me before I'm done." Pakkun told him before hopping off to start in the rooms on the first floor. Kakashi could see Avurin shaking her head, her eyes following Pakkun until he was out of sight.
"You have summons?" she asked. Kakashi shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Yeah, a few. I signed a contract with them when my dad was still alive. I've raised Pakkun since he was a puppy. In total, I have eight dog summons I can bring to battle or for recon if I need to. They all have special skills but they are all helpful for investigating a place like this. Pakkun is the smallest so he'll fit into small spaces if he finds any." Kakashi explained, watching her face as her expression went from shock to wonder.
"I'm surprised you haven't used them sooner," was her only response to the information. Kakashi sighed, tilting his head to the side.
"I could have but I try not to use them too often. They have their own lives in the summoning realm and I usually summon them mid-battle so I like to keep them as a last-resort surprise. Pakkun is always available so I summon him more often. There's also the introductions, especially on missions like this." Kakashi drawled. Answering to the pack was always a pain after certain introductions and Avurin would be especially interesting to the pack as a potential mate for their summoner.
"Hey, that also explains the barking I heard when you were fighting Zabuza! You summoned them there?" she asked as they started walking up the stairs to start picking through the rooms on the second level. Kakashi nodded.
"I summoned all eight in a split second decision to pin down Zabuza so I could hit him. It takes a toll to summon all of them but I was running out of choices." They climbed the right side of the imperial staircase and he led the way to the first door.
"I can't believe I missed it. Are they usually friendly? Pakkun seemed pretty polite." she asked as he opened the door. He knew this was one of the offices on this floor and it would likely have information on the logistics of the clan as opposed to secrets since it was so easily accessible.
"They each have their own personalities but they can all be won over with a treat or two," he commented, finishing the conversation as she took in the room. He could smell the old books on the bookshelves and dried inkwells that sat on the desk. "I'll help you with this room. I'll need to use the Sharingan quite a bit today so try to take as many notes as you can and I'll memorize the more detailed and important pieces of information that we find." He moved to the bookshelves and skimmed the spines, not recognizing any of the titles. They had to assume that any of the books could contain information, whether it was tucked into one of the pages or a handwritten record or journal. He sighed and put a hand to his forehead. He loved reading but there had to be at least 300 books in this room alone.
"Let's get started, then. I don't want to spend longer than two days in this room. We can come back to it if we need to take a break and look through another room." She sat down at the dusty desk, immediately opening all of the drawers, finding one locked. Logically, that was the best place to start and locked drawers had information in them. He pulled out his lock pick and quickly opened it for her. She pulled it open to find a stack of paperwork with handwritten notes that she removed and set on the desk to start sorting through.
…
They spent hours in the office, Kakashi skimming through several of the books and making a pile of potential information for Avurin to review later when she finished sorting through the paperwork that was in the desk. So far, they'd found accounting sheets that spanned several generations of the Okita family, contracts with other clans for everything from arranged marriages to simple trading of resources, and letters that had been sent and received by several heads of the clan. They had only had to use the Sharingan a couple of times for a few documents involving commissions to and from Konoha, everything else had been pretty much meaningless for their current mission.
At one point, one of the letters had Avurin blushing, looking extremely horrified at its contents and throwing it in Kakashi's direction, telling him that he'd get a kick out of reading it. He felt his own cheeks heat at the pornographic descriptions of the writer's wife's assets as he detailed a weekend without any other family in the home. Icha Icha was one thing, this was just depraved. On top of that, he doubted the man's wife would have been too happy to see a letter like this written about her and sent to a friend of her husband's.
It was around midday that Kakashi stood from where he was sitting on the floor, stretching his arms above his head, being rewarded with the feeling of his back popping in several places. Avurin looked like she needed a break as well from the way she was hunched over the desk, one hand buried in her hair, holding her bangs away from her face as she held her head up. She was heavily invested in the particular forms in front of her and his curiosity peaked.
"I'm hungry. Let's eat lunch and we'll come back to this." Kakashi said as he put a hand on her shoulder. Looking at the paper she was reviewing, he felt a shock run down his back and he instinctively bristled, barely stopping himself from snarling at the offending parchment. There was a title to the contract, Marriage Proposal - Hatake and Okita. Avurin shook her head and looked up at him, removing her hand from her hair. She pointed to a large red stamp on the bottom of the paper where a signature would have been.
"It never went through and was rejected by the head of my clan. They were proposing that one of your great-great-grandmothers be married to my great-grandfather." she muttered. "It was rejected on the grounds of reputation and age of the bride-to-be. She was older than my great-grandfather by almost a decade, pretty much guaranteed to not be a virgin, and there's handwritten notes left by the head of the clan wondering why she hadn't been married off sooner. Apparently the Hatakes had a reputation of being pretty brutal warriors at the time and she wasn't exactly the demure maiden they wanted married into the family." Folding her hands in front of her and sighed. "Probably had something to do with the Hatake traits too, but I couldn't find any notes related to it." Kakashi swallowed the lump in his throat.
"It makes sense. That was around the time my clan started to dwindle. Without heirs to support the clan, it started to die out. That's why the compound is so large despite me being the only remaining Hatake. From what I understand, it became difficult to find marriage candidates as our reputation grew. Our traits were intentionally kept as a clan secret but I don't doubt that some clan heads had their suspicions. Even now, the Hyuuga and Aburame clan suspect I have some secrets but know better than to ask." The explanation felt lackluster and he felt bitter about the reasons for the dwindling of his clan. This marriage proposal must have been a shot in the dark to renew the clan with force by marrying off one of the women in the clan despite the fact that she wouldn't carry the Hatake name anymore. At the very least, their clan would have continued through the Okita name.
"It's a good thing this didn't go through then. We wouldn't have had a chance together if it had. I'm not into inbreeding." Avurin said with a laugh as she stood, almost knocking Kakashi over from where he'd rooted himself to the spot at her comment. It took a moment for him to shake the suddenly hopeful thoughts from his head and before he could stop himself, he reached out to grab her hand while she was making her way to the door.
"Do you really mean that? A chance?" he asked, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. Avurin blushed and avoided his eyes but nodded.
"A chance. I'm still thinking about it." she whispered. He felt his grip on her hand slacken as he let her go.
"A chance is better than a no," he muttered. She nodded once and continued to walk out of the room, leaving him in the office. He watched her go down the stairs, sweeping down the steps and bolting to the living room they had been using as a base for their investigations. He sighed and put a hand to his forehead. His instincts screamed at him constantly to hold her, protect her, and constantly be around her. It was an internal battle each time she left his sight. Even if they did get that chance, he couldn't always watch over her and some part of him had to make peace with that. Turning back to the parchment on the desk, he used his Sharingan to record the details of the form and the handwritten note that was with it. There was no telling if that information would be important later.
He decided to follow her downstairs after a moment but was much slower in his descent of the stairs. As he stepped off the last step of the stairs and walked towards the living room, he could hear Avurin speaking and wanted to slap himself. Of course, Pakkun was likely done with his search. Walking in the room, he was surprised to see Avurin sitting on the couch with the pug in her lap, lightly petting his head as she told him about some of the interesting things they had found in the office.
"Sounds like you found the clan drama. That can be just as interesting as the clan secrets." Pakkun told her as Kakashi tried to commit the scene to his memory the normal way. Pakkun never wanted to be held or coddled so it was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence to witness.
"Oh, for sure. We even found a letter that was basically porn. It even made Kakashi blush! Eh, 'Kashi? Too much for you?" she teased as she tilted her head in his direction. At the acknowledgement of his summoner, Pakkun hopped off of her lap and stood in front of him.
"Mah, it was just raunchy. Without the entertainment we have nowadays with Icha Icha and other more sophisticated romantic novels, clan heads had to find their entertainment somewhere." Kakashi teased right back. Pakkun snorted and Kakashi focused on the dog in front of him. "Find anything?" he asked. Pakkun tilted his head.
"Well, I found a couple of odd scents that I followed. Some ended at some odd points such as a wall in the office behind the nicer sitting room. There might be a secret entrance there. The scent indicated that it used to be used frequently by one particular member of the home. Of course, I could smell that you two had already discovered the one in the kitchen. I avoided that one for reasons I'm sure you understand. There were a couple of chests with odd scents in the upstairs bedrooms, nothing unpleasant but still odd. I also found a crawlspace in one of the bathrooms upstairs. It hadn't been used anytime in the last century, though. Nothing as offensive as the one in the kitchen as far as I could tell." Pakkun reported and Kakashi felt his shoulders sag in relief. Hopefully the secret room above the kitchen was the worst of the secrets hidden in the home.
"I would like to mention the smell of mold in the crawlspace, though. Not the usual dust and mold you're smelling through the house. It smells like there was a leak of some sort that was never properly cleaned. Please be careful while investigating that area." Pakkun finished. Kakashi nodded.
"Thank you for checking everything for us. We're going to eat and then I think we'll investigate the wall in the office you had mentioned. I'd like you to stay with us for a bit so we can make sure there aren't any surprises." Kakashi turned to Avurin who gave a nod. A secret entrance in the office downstairs was likely going to hold more secrets than any other area. He'd originally written off that office as pure decoration since there hadn't been any papers on the desk and the books on the shelves were all very common titles. They would have investigated it anyway, but the likelihood of finding anything in there had been minimal until now.
"Sure thing, boss," Pakkun said before hopping back on the couch to lay down on the cushion next to Avurin. She smiled and gave him a gentle pat on his head.
"Well, I have some ration bars or we can try to prepare something. I think the oven in the kitchen is a wood-fire oven so we should be able to use it. I saw some wood outside through the kitchen window that should be dry enough to use. It was probably cut a long time ago, though, so if there's anything wrong with it we'll stick with ration bars. I don't want to leave the walls of the estate until we're ready to go." Avurin said as she stood. Kakashi found himself walking towards the kitchen, taking in the iron oven.
"This should work. I'll go check the wood while you get it cleaned up. What did you bring that would need an oven to cook?" he asked. They usually only brought food that was prepared to be eaten in the field so it wasn't protocol to bring anything that would need to be prepared. Of course, Avurin liked to keep surprising him. She smiled and opened a storage scroll on the counter, a couple of vegetables appearing in a puff of smoke including some carrots, eggplant, potatoes, and green onion.
"Well, you never know what you could need on a mission. Vegetables are great in a pinch if you're tired of ration bars. It's all edible at the end of the day. I figured I'd make a little bit of a stew with some water, the vegetables, and some seasonings I brought for shits and giggles." she commented, flipping her hair with a flourish intended to tease him. Or at least it felt like she was teasing him. Her hair was soft and framed her face so perfectly, even in the heat of battle. He shook himself from his thoughts. She was just being cocky.
"If you can find some dishes that aren't too difficult to clean, it sounds like a plan. No point in letting good vegetables go to waste." he called over his shoulder as he moved to walk out of the back door. She shouted back an affirmative and he heard a clatter as she yanked out a wooden drawer, likely looking for silverware. Sighing, he walked through the door and closed it behind him with a creak. His nose instantly picked up the scent he'd smelled when they first arrived and his eyes found the source quickly. A decomposed body was slouched against the wall in the backyard, likely a trespasser that didn't even have the chance to realize their mistake. He could handle the smell, he'd had to deal with that scent on several occasions, but it was still offensive and nearly ruined his appetite.
He quickly found the wood Avurin had been talking about sitting neatly in a rack against the wall outside of the kitchen. He could see Avurin through the kitchen window, fretting over a pot that she'd found and was trying to clean with their limited supplies. He couldn't help but smile. She was so perfect. She would make an amazing mate, cooking for him like today, greeting him when he came home from missions, and rearing his future pups with an iron fist. That last thought made him freeze and choke on his own spit. Sure, his thoughts had been derailed lately and he'd been indulging his instincts more than what could be considered safe for the sanity of his mind, but rearing pups? Cooking for him? What had gotten into him?
He pinched himself on the wrist and bit his lip hard enough to draw a pinprick of blood, hoping the pain would get his mind back on track. He needed to get the wood for the food. He walked to the stack of wood and was happy to find dry, healthy wood on the rack. There was quite a bit of it, too. They could continue to cook while they were here and wouldn't be forced to eat ration bars and soldier pills the entire time they were there. He grabbed several pieces of the wood, carefully inspecting it for any insects or other unsavory hitchhikers or any mold. His eyebrows furrowed at the almost-perfect condition of the wood.
If anything, it looked like it had been placed there a week ago, not decades prior. Something about this place was very off and the discrepancies were making themselves very apparent. First the slave's quarters being in near-perfect condition and now a stack of wood? Something wasn't right. He filed away that thought for later and brought the wood inside, purposefully not looking towards the corpse he had to pass to get back inside. It was several yards away, yet that smell was just overwhelming in such a peaceful place.
"Found the wood. It's all in good condition so we can cook the entire week we're here if you've brought enough food that needs it." Kakashi called out as he brought the wood inside. The scene that greeted him in the kitchen had him holding back a full-blown laugh by only a thread.