Chapter 14: The Eyes of a Stranger

I woke up in the middle of the night.

It was, to be honest, a peaceful one. No loud noises, no Shinobi running on the roof.
I heard the comforting sound of the coffee machine, one or two rooms on my left. My senses were not back to full but recovering steadily.
I watched my surroundings. Moon-moon was asleep in a cute doggy bed alongside my own. His breathing was the only thing breaking the silence.

Konoha, which I could see outside my room's window, still had some light in it. The hospital was far away from the town center, but the restaurants were still open.
Konoha never sleeps after all.

And then my eyes moved to the visitor chair. In front of my bed. Where an old man was sitting. Green eyes, like mine, meets me and all the blood in my veins turned to ice.

"You… Are… Awake. That's… Good…"

The old man's voice was… Broken. Like an old toy broken by years of disuse.

Please don't be Danzo. Please don't be Danzo. Please don't be Danzo. Please don't be that asshole.

"I have been… watching you… For a long time… Young alpha…"

The shock of having an unknown person in my room passed (replaced by 'I can't move, forget about fighting, so let's talk') so I focused my still blurred-from-sleeping vision on his face.

Old.
That was the first thing that ran through my mind. Old and tired. His face was covered in crevices. Some might be from old age, some looked like they were from tears. His green eyes were looking at me, not angrily, not hungrily, but with kindness. And his smell… Why do I knew that smell?

"You… I know you… Where did we…" I tried to speak before noticing that I couldn't move. I wasn't bound but my muscles would not allow me to do a single action against this intruder.
"Yes… Give me… A moment…" the old person in front of me put a hand on his throat. I recognized the green light that emanated from them as a healing jutsu.
"I haven't spoken to humans in… Ten years…? Maybe less? Almost forgot how to. I'm sorry for that but it might take a few minutes for my… For my voice to mend itself."
"Who… Who are you? And why does your smell feel… familiar?" I couldn't hide the tang of fear from my voice. Who was this fucker? How could he, and I quote Jiraya, infiltrate the fucking highest security wing of the hospital and not trigger any alarm?

"We've met for the first time… 5 years ago…" He suddenly coughed in this hand. The iron smell of blood filled my nostrils.
"Still as uncomfortable as ever… But it was when you fiddled with the seal on your feet. I was above. Watching over you. Watching if th…"

He started to cough again, but this time the smell of blood didn't reappear.

"Almost there. A few sentences will do the trick." Somehow, I had the impression that his voice was… Fixing itself. His first sentences were pained, like someone breathing his last breath. The last one sounded more… Alive.
"So, I'll begin with some introduction. My name is Kiba and I am your grandfather…"

Forgot how to talk with humans. The words hit me like a jackhammer. Kiba. The Wise. The last and only Alpha recorded by the Inuzuka. And I understood.
Kiba, the one that, according to my mother, died in a suicide mission that crippled the Water country. Driving them out of the war, forcing them to close their borders and mend their wounds… Leaving enough breathing room to unleash the Yellow Flash on the last open war front…

"Why… Are you here… Mom… Your daughter thinks you are dead!"

I saw the pain in his eyes. He was either the best actor I ever saw or the most genuine person in the world because the aforementioned pain in his eyes was all but SCREAMING at me.

"I came to fulfill my duty as an Alpha. I came back to Konoha the second I heard from the pack that my successor was born. I came back so I can finally put my ghost to rest. By telling you a story…"

What.

A stranger infiltrate one of the most secure places of a village populated by the most DANGEROUS person in the world, enters the room of one of its most supervised inhabitants, all while coughing like a madman but no-one magically hears it and just… Want to tell me a story?

"What do you want from me?" I asked. Not out of defiance but out of a genuine intent to understand what the fuck was going on.
"I want you to listen to me. To hear my story and draw your own conclusions. From my own conclusions. It's how it should be and how I hope it will always be. I hope you will…" his voice strained again, but he didn't cough. "I hope you will listen."
'I can't really move from here. So yeah, why not."
I drew a small grin on my face. My grandfather, as he claimed to be, noticed it and smiled too. A smile, I noted, that very much resembled mine.

"Very well. Then, I shall begin by asking you this. What were you told about me? What, according to the village, is my legacy?"

A weird question, but one I can answer.

"According to my… To your daughter, you are a hero. Born in time of war, grown in time of slaughter. You were considered a genius since childhood but one among many. You then became the Protector when you were ten due to the lack of any successor and your own strength. But the first thing you did as a Protector was to force the young Inuzukas to focus more on the 'trusting friend' than the 'rabid hound' we were thought of and… It worked."

I still remember the pride in my eyes as my mother was speaking about this part of the story. Apparently the second rule was only ever applied to members of the clan. If a teammate should be killed for the good of the mission, then an Inuzuka would always. ALWAYS, kill them himself.

"Then you also reformed the way our children were taught, so that the second rule was applied to anyone that could have your back. Clan or not. According to mum it took time but… It worked again. I know it firsthand. In today's Konoha, an Inuzuka teammate is the guarantee that you will have someone at your back when the time comes..."

The eyes of my grandfather lit up again. I saw a tear slowly emerge from his left eye and roll among one of the many crevices of his face. One crevice that seemed to have been… Used a lot.

"And then… At the end of the war… You were sent on a dangerous mission… A secret mission to give Konoha the opportunity to end the war and… It worked… Konoha then ended the war… But you never came back.
So, the story became a tale, the tale became a legend and now you are known as Inuzuka Kiba, the Wise…"
"The Wise…" The eyes of the man in front of me lost their focus. He was still looking straight at me but… But the sheer hatred they carried was not directed to me…
"Well, it's normal that war stories become distorted with time…" His eyes became soft again as they refocused to me.
"I won't say that this story you were told is false. None of it was. But it's missing a small part near the end. A small but oh so important part if you truly wish to understand… But first I need to know."

That's when I noticed something was wrong. The dead tone in his voice and the fact that the old bag of bones slowly raised up from his chair... And that I felt a permeating mother fucking killing intent in my general direction!

"Before I tell you the rest, I need to know you are a true Alpha." He then put a kunai out of his pocket and held it in front of his face.
"This…Will give me the answer."

And, just like that, without any more ceremony, he threw the 12cm piece of steely death toward my fucking HEAD!

FUCKFUCKFUCK I still can't fucking move! And Moon-moon isn't waking up! Why the fuck is he STILL SLEEPING!
I could only helplessly watch the projectile slowly coming close to me. A part of my brain that apparently paid attention during math classes at the academy calculated that the fucking kunai will land itself between my fucking eyes!
And it's not a blunted one! The simple sheen of the blade when it came close to the window shows that it's FUCKING SHARP!

I can't move! Why can't I move! Is this how I die?!

I continued to watch the tool of death moving toward me in slow motion. Each millisecond turning to an agonizing eternity because I CAN'T DO A FUCKING THING! I'M STUCK AND I'M GONNA…. Wait. Why am I not dead yet? He launched the fucking thing 15 seconds ago!

My eyes were still stuck on the blade, now a few millimeters from my head and… Not moving at all.

Not advancing, not falling to the ground. Just… Stuck in time as I desperately looked at it.

Then I saw movement. Kiba slowly started to move in my direction. The kunai was still frozen in mid-air as I REFUSED to take my eyes out of it. The old man came close to my bed and grabbed the handle of the knife in the air, expertly storing it back in the… Whatever pockets he has in his rag.

And then… Something broke. I felt my body, who had tensed up almost collapse. Then I heard noises around me. Civilians passing by and chatting. The head nurse was writing her report just a few rooms away and somehow still not noticing anything out of the ordinary. The normal and comforting noises of Konoha civilian nightlife…

Why do I only hear them now?

"What… Was that…" I could only say, trying to calm my frantic heartbeat due to, you know, almost becoming a FUCKING KHEBAB!
"Focus." The voice of my grandfather and potential murderer came.
"Well, FUCK YOU GRAMPS, I am pretty focused right now! Focused on the fact that you TRIED TO MURDER THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR GRANDCHILD!"
"No, you misunderstood. I wasn't saying 'please focus', I was saying that what you just experienced was the technique known as 'Focus'."

…What? I just the maybe but the WHAT?

"This is why I came back to the village. Why I watched you, waiting, when all I want is to die." Kiba's voice was tired, tired but also… Freed. From what I don't have a fucking clue.
"If you weren't a true Alpha, then that kunai would have killed you. But it didn't. Do you have any idea why?" His voice was now… Amused. Oh, the MotherfuNOOOOOOOO NOT FINISHING THAT THOUGHT!

"I don't know, it just…. Started slowing? The more I looked at it the slower it became and then… You moved and grabbed it? I don't really get it..."
"That's because 'Focus' is a technique I discovered. But not created. It's a technique that is on each and every one of us from the beginning but… A technique that somehow only manifests by itself with an Alpha."

His voice was tired again.

"And a true Alpha I have in front of me. So, I can be relieved of my duty. I can finally share my story… I can finally tell someone the missing part of the legend that was Inuzuka Kiba, the Wise…And I can finally see my love again… Will you continue listen to me, kid?"

Whelp. Still can't move. So why the fuck not?