Naruto x Digimon

Alive - Team Minato's Digidestined

Chapter 029

Originally Written: Wednesday, February 1, 2023 929AM to 1043AM

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A/N: I'm not dead, and I haven't abandoned my stories. I'm just hiding from the world until the sun decides to return where I am. Thought you should know. Thanks for reading. -shifts back under a large pile of blankets-

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Surprisingly, the easier part of working in Anbu was that no one liked Kakashi Hatake. As an unexpected outcome, he didn't have to deal with the back and forth he sometimes had to deal with when he was on a more traditional team. His teammates either respected him enough to listen to his input or they ignored him completely. There wasn't much of an in between. He took it in stride, and tried not to think of how many bodies he stepped over just to protect Rin and Obito.

He did however, need the ones who refused to listen to him unless ordered to by their team captain, to pull the stick out of their butts. So he sent Gabumon to work. The digimon had plenty of time to become as skilled as most anbu were with information gathering. He put himself to work.

The little secrets Kakashi revealed in the mix of his snide comments and arguments turned heads. They paid attention to him, and slowly but surely listened more. Not many knew exactly how the sharingan worked, and Kakashi used it to his advantage. Any complaints they had to take to the higher authorities didn't work, because oftentimes the higher authorities were Uchiha and knew the sharingan didn't work like that. He took full advantage.

Someone was having an affair, that one had a crush, another one over there was in debt. Someone else was a man who secretly enjoyed wearing women's clothing and didn't want anyone to know. That woman didn't like Kushina Uzumaki because the current Hokage deserved a better woman. Another individual wanted Fugaku Uchiha to be Hokage. Kakashi pushed them all in line. All in better time than it took more experienced Anbu Captains to. Disciplining anbu recruits took a different approach than teaching genin or chunin, and Kakashi took advantage of it.

It was unexpected when an older, more experienced member of Anbu sat next to him. He acknowledged their presence, but not more than that. The Anbu didn't say anything. The only thing they did was drop a book onto the table in front of him. Then they decided to speak.

"Trash should read trash."

There was nothing in the tone to imply insult or anything of the like, but Kakashi still felt like he'd been smacked. He looked at the yellow-brown book sitting on the table. "The Tales of a Gutsy Ninja." He read the book's title.

It took him under three days to finish the book, which he started carrying around with him in his flak jacket. In a week he read it twice. To which he realized that anbu had many unspoken rules, and he had broken many of them. The anbu didn't like him, but none of them threatened him with whatever secrets he supposed they knew about him. He didn't stop to think if they actually had any dirt on him. They never spoke of his father against him. Any reason why they didn't like him was solely from actions he had taken himself. Never from rumor. Never from bloodline.

In his bathroom at home, he took a long while to stare into the mirror. He didn't like doing this often or for too long. He always saw his father's face, especially when he wasn't wearing his mask. "I'm sorry."

Wanyamon sat on the sink, its tail wagging back and forth. "What for?"

"I shouldn't have used you like that." Kakashi ran a hand over Wanyamon's fur. On the other side of the sink sat a half drunk bottle of alcohol. He didn't like this particular style, but it's what he had on hand, so he drank it.

"Like what?" Wanyamon looked at him in pure confusion. His green eyes blinked innocently.

"I used you to threaten them." Kakashi picked up Wanyamon. "I sent you from me to do it."

"It's okay." It chirped. "I'll do anything for you, 'Kashi-kun."

He looked at his digimon. He'd been saying that more lately, but Kakashi couldn't figure out why. "You don't like it when I send you away to scout information."

His digimon remained silent. Kakashi frowned.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Wanyamon nodded quickly. "Yup!" Its tail continued wagging. Kakashi got the feeling it didn't comprehend the statement.

"I shouldn't have made you do that. Not like that." Kakashi crushed Wanyamon against his chest. "I won't do it again. Everyone in Konoha isn't my enemy, and you're not a tool."

"Okay!" Wanyamon chirped. He still felt like Wanyamon didn't understand, but that was okay.

He stepped out of the bathroom, his resolve renewed. He could survive anbu, but not how he was going about it. He'd seen a few who thrived in anbu because they thrived off the violence involved. Others in Anbu didn't, instead thriving off of the desire to protect the village while having the skill to do so. He'd yet to see someone like him for the short time he'd been there so far. Of course, that was probably because they were correct. People like him just didn't survive long in Anbu. He'd have to make a better impression than he was making.

He and Sangloupmon outshined them all on every mission. His teammates might come back injured, sometimes missing a limb, sometimes requiring intensive hospital care, but they all came back alive. Kakashi took the brunt of everything. He stumbled, and shuffled his feet, and stabbed his opponents, and patched up his wounds and made sure everyone assigned on a mission with him came back alive.

He knew he was making progress when less and less people stopped ignoring him. When they listened, they meant it and weren't listening just to not have to deal with him any longer than they needed to.

On the outside, Sharingan Kakashi was his moniker now. Behind closed doors, they all knew his true strength came from his wolf summons and the barriers he frequently activated. They didn't know how he did it, just that he did, and it saved many of their lives.

On a particularly hard mission against a difficult group of enemies, Sangloupmon digivolved. The chakra needed combined with his sharingan, nearly knocked Kakashi out. The new digivolution, Matadormon, was smaller than Sangloupmon, about the same height of an adult male. However, he was quick. Frequently it turned into a blur not unlike the Fourth Hokage. That combined with its inhuman strength that allowed it to break boulders and bring down walls and trees in a single kick was more than what his team needed to make it out.

Matadormon was flamboyant and jovial, and frequently danced around Kakashi and his various teams as they traveled on the long missions that sometimes lasted months. At least, that's what his teammates saw or wanted to see.

However, Kakashi saw a knowledge and age in Matadormon that placed the digimon more on the skill level of the Third Hokage in his glory days. Matadormon trained with the anbu recruits, secretly continuing to gather information on them, even though Kakashi told him he didn't need to anymore. It would use this time to help them improve their own forms as well, giving them advice and voicing his opinions on their tactics in a soft raspy voice. Its skin was pale, and it ate much less than Wanyamon, Gabumon and Sangloupmon did. Kakashi wondered if it even needed to. Kakashi frequently looked at him, trying to understand.

Matadormon would only smile during those times and tell him, "You'll figure it out. You are my Kakashi Hatake, and anything less wouldn't be you."

Kakashi wasn't sure if he would like, or be able to cope with the answers to the questions that filled his mind, should he discover them.

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Note: Matadormon is a reflection of Kakashi's personality. Matadormon is classified as an undead. I am treating him as a vampire. Kakashi feels as though he is in a position which is sucking the life out of him. I currently can't properly voice my thoughts on this, but essentially Matadormon is actually dead, but alive in personality, and Kakashi is actually alive and dead in personality. Something like that.