Something smelled extremely like cotton candy and musty wood. Kakashi grimaced and sniffed loudly, long lint closed his nostrils. Coughing and automatically rubbing his nose, he rolled his head on the pillow and almost fell off the bed. He floundered, clung to a fuzzy, soft object, stretched his left leg against the wall and balanced himself again.

He was literally hanging from the cliff to a fifty-centimetre-deep abyss. He quickly squirmed more onto the soft surface so as not to risk a shoulder fracture and looked around sleepily. The guest room seemed cold and uninviting in the dim light. For the first time since moving in, he had slept alone in a bed, and he immediately realized how badly he needed closeness while sleeping – so much so that he had cuddled with the teddy-shaped uterine cancer. Perhaps, after what had happened yesterday, it wasn't necessarily Madara who was supposed to serve as a cuddly toy, but just anything or anyone.

As if Kakashi had attracted him with his lazy thoughts, the door opened and Madara stood in the frame – suit pants, button-up and cigarette. "Aha, you're awake," he greeted in his tried and tested, over-friendly and good-hearted manner.

Kakashi groaned, dropped his head into the pillow and his leg plopped back onto the mattress. "What do you want?"

"What I want..?" Madara asked unexpectedly calm and came to the bed, towering over the lying Kakashi by what felt like three metres. "I want you to apologize."

Kakashi snorted, put his right arm over his face and grumbled, "What exactly should I apologize for?"

"For the way you behaved yesterday," Madara explained, the mattress next to Kakashi's hip lowered and a cool hand rested on his bare stomach, which briefly stopped his breath. "For drinking despite not being allowed to. And for being here too late again."

Restlessly, Kakashi wanted to push Madara's hand away and cover his stomach with the T-shirt that had slipped up, but Madara tensed his muscles vehemently and so Kakashi gave it up again. He sighed heavily. "I'm sorry for how I behaved yesterday, I'm sorry I drank, I'm sorry I was late again. Satisfied?"

"Look at me."

Kakashi's hand clenched and the accompanying arm slipped into his hair. "I'm sorry for how I behaved yesterday—"

"Why?" Madara interrupted his monotonous apologies.

"Why, what?"

"Why did you behave like that?"

Kakashi let out a "Ks", grinned humourlessly and looked at the ceiling, just couldn't face this man's visage. "What do you think?"

"What I think is irrelevant, I want to hear it from your mouth."

Now the hand that was buried deep under the colourful teddy clenched. "Because I was hurt."

"In a whole sentence."

"I behaved like this because I was hurt," Kakashi growled with gritted teeth.

"Why were you hurt?"

As if the wanker didn't know that! But Kakashi learned quickly and provided his well-formulated answer. "I was hurt because you don't reciprocate my feelings."

"What feelings do I not reciprocate?"

Gradually, this became really stupid.. Couldn't they just leave it at that and carry on as if nothing had ever happened?! No, now salt came into the wound. "You don't reciprocate my love."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes." And he hated himself for it.

"How can you be sure of that?"

Kakashi looked down again. Madara watched him completely blankly. Kakashi thought for a moment, asked himself this question, shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know. I simply am."

"How do you define love?" Madara continued without showing a stir in his stoic expression.

"No idea, just love," Kakashi groaned.

"What is love for you?"

"Love is.." Yes, what actually? What was it that he had thought he felt with Rin, that he now imagined with Madara? "Love is..." He wondered if he had ever picked up a definition of that word. Love was one of those things where everyone seemed to know what it was like, but no one could describe it in a way that sounded sincere. How would it be in the dictionary? "Love is when you feel affection.. Kinda that."

"And you feel that for me?"

Kakashi stared into those hard-to-read eyes for a long time, then slowly shook his head. "It's not affection."

"Then why do you say you love me?"

As if Kakashi knew the answer to that! Why had he said it? And why had he said it to Rin? He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Madara was silent during this time, seemed to be waiting for Kakashi to continue talking. "I.. I think I just want it to be true. I want to love and be loved."

"Why do you want that?"

Kakashi laughed briefly, but his smile faded again because there was no muscle twitching in Madara's face. "Are you serious? It's simple: Because it's human. You say yourself that we long for affection."

For the first time, Madara moved. He tilted his head slightly to the side and the area around his eyes tightened a bit. "And I told you to break away from it. The thing about humanity is this: Let a small group of people onto a desert island with no food source and they will tear each other apart – yet cannibalism is considered inhumane. Paradoxical, isn't it? Deep down in our core, we are nothing but wild animals that have been domesticated to fit into a set of rules of our own society. You crave affection and want love because it's what you think is right. In truth, you're just looking for an alpha to take you under his wing, so you don't have to give up your leg to the group first. You don't want affection and love, but security and belonging. Kakashi, I won't give you love, so don't hope for it. You won't find this construct with me, but I guard my property when it behaves. Do you want to be guarded? Do you want to be on the side of the strong and survive?"

Kakashi nodded immediately, because that was exactly what he wanted—protection from the horror of this world, and if that meant the absence of reciprocated love, then he could do without it.

"Go on," Madara said, and at first Kakashi wondered what was being asked of him, but he remembered it and muttered embarrassedly, "I'm sorry I drank."

"Did you do it because you were hurt?"

"Yes. I always drank when I was down. At some point, it became a habit. I preferred to destroy my liver instead of dealing with my problems. It's my coping mechanism, I can't deal with it any other way."

"Do you think you share this weakness with your father?"

It bugged Kakashi, but he nodded. "Yes.. My dad started drinking after my mum's death because he couldn't handle his grief."

"So, you would call yourself an alcoholic?"

Kakashi wrestled with himself, bit his lower lip briefly, inhaled trembling and nodded.

"Say it," Madara demanded.

"I'm afraid I'm an alcoholic."

"You swore to me, contractually assured me that you would not touch any more alcohol, but you still drank yesterday. I understand that you have a hard time controlling your addiction, nevertheless, I cannot allow you to make another misstep with impunity. You have to be trained, Kakashi. Can you think of a strategy for successfully educating naughty mutts?"

"Patience and confidence?" Kakashi asked hopefully, trying to lighten the mood a bit and not suggest any ideas for whatever torture methods.

But Madara's question had obviously only been meant rhetorically. A sudden jolt went through his body. He stood up, leaned low over Kakashi and the hand shot from Kakashi's stomach into his crotch, where the fingers closed around his genitals and gripped tightly. Kakashi clawed into the teddy's fur, hidden under all the plush, and gasped restrainedly. "I'm more of a fan of aversive teaching and it seems to be slowly becoming necessary for you. I've been patient with you for too long, endured your crap. Kakashi Hatake, see this as your first lesson so that you can finally reach your full potential: If you drink even a drop of alcohol one more time, I'll cut off your balls. Did you understand that?"

Kakashi nodded hastily. "Yes, sir," he croaked with a dry throat.

"Good," Madara whispered and gave him a little kiss. "Now get ready and shower off this stench, otherwise you'll be late again in the end and have to apologize to me again." He straightened up and took his hand out of Kakashi's crotch.

Relieved, Kakashi exhaled and unconsciously put a few more centimetres between himself and the now standing Madara, who let his eyes glide along Kakashi's body. "Your second lesson is: Be presentable at all times. Without a hangover, you should be able to do this easily, but I don't tolerate broken clothes, greasy hair, dark circles under your eyes or pimples anywhere. Take care of yourself, get enough sleep, dress according to your damn age and definitely get your emotions under control. I don't want to see any more tears in your eyes, they're too beautiful for that."

"Okay," Kakashi mumbled. Then at least he had a destination after work – the drugstore to deal with facial care, and an H so that he could stock up on untorn jeans.

Madara left him alone and Kakashi needed a moment for his rapid heartbeat to calm down again. Slowly he sat up and looked at his crotch. Yesterday had been a one-off mistake. He swore to himself never to touch a bottle again. Because one thing was clear: Madara was not joking. And he was right. For far too long he had been patient and let Kakashi get away with too much of his defiance. He had to pull himself together. No alcohol, for the sake of his balls!

He got up, took off his clothes and went to take a shower. Ten minutes later, he stood in front of the mirror and inspected his face. The pimple on his forehead was only a red shadow, but a new one sprouted below his chin. Since when was his skin so impure?! It usually took a few weeks for a pore to become clogged.

Grumpily, he nibbled at the boil and scratched it open. No, what way it got even worse! He frantically dabbed the blood with a strip of toilet paper, squeezed out the pus, dabbed again and dripped water over it to clean the small wound. "Fuck.." he breathed, opened the right side of the mirror cabinet and rummaged around in Madara's toiletries. A pink plastic bottle read, "Rose water - The secret of young skin - clears and cleanses the pores" That sounded promising! He soaked a cotton pad with this stuff, rubbed it over his face and wrinkled his nose. It really didn't smell good, but if it helped..

He stared expectantly at the open pimple. How long would it take for it to be gone? Shaking his head, he threw the cotton pad into the bin under the sink and noticed at the slightest facial expression that his skin was tight. Astonished, he approached the mirror, wrinkled his forehead and pulled his jaw down. Something was wrong with his skin. It felt strange, as if it had lost its elasticity, and there! Flocculation at the tip of his nose. Dry dandruff..

Without further ado, he took the vat with the Nivea cream, dabbed his finger briefly into it and spread the white lubricant on his face. It was pretty greasy, he thought, and now his face felt kind of heavy. Okay, Madara's cosmetic poop was clearly not made for him. He should have just postponed it until later, when he had bought his own stuff, then he wouldn't have to walk around with a shiny film on his face now.

"You've got post," said Madara, who was already sitting at the dining table spooning his fruit yogurt.

"What? Post? Me? Why? By whom?"

"The crematorium," Madara explained, turning a page of his newspaper. "You were not present at the appointment and that's why your father's ashes are now standing around there. You should pick them up."

You couldn't have put it more considerately. "Oh," Kakashi said, allowed himself a bowl of cornflakes today and sat down with Madara. "Right, that was the day before yesterday."

"Why didn't you go?" Madara asked absently, seemed engrossed in an article on the local page.

"I don't know.." Kakashi murmured. "I.. I think I just couldn't stand by and watch him get burned."

"Normally you don't see the body. It would have been just a wooden box that went up in flames."

"Yes, but a wooden box with my father inside."

Madara looked up briefly but immediately returned to the newspaper. "Are you crying now?"

"Shut up," Kakashi grumbled and poked around in his muesli.

After the morning meeting at Akatsuki, Kakashi was in for a surprise. Apart from Pain, all teams of two had flown out to their missions and Madara beckoned Kakashi to him, who raised his head attentively without moving from the spot. Madara responded with a grim curl of his upper lip. "Zetsu had an accident with his motorcycle and is in hospital with a concussion, and since I can't let my staff go alone, you'll accompany Pain."

"What?" Kakashi asked in horror and looked from Madara to Pain and back again. The pierced man had his light grey eyes constantly fixed on Kakashi and his expression betrayed no friendly feelings. "I am supposed to go on a debt collection tour with Pain?!"

Madara demonstratively slammed a stapler shut. "Yes."

"Why with him of all people?"

"Do you have a problem with me?" Pain snapped at him.

Kakashi held his gaze. "I guess we both know the answer to that."

Pain's pale lips, which usually never showed any form of emotion, curled into a malicious smirk. "Are you afraid of me, kid?"

There it was again, this belittling in form of "kid". Kakashi was eighteen, damn it! He was NOT a kid. "Of you? No. Eunuchs don't scare me."

"Eunuchs..?"

Kakashi grinned and snarled, "They are very sublime and self-confident people, like you."

"Listen, you piss, if you get on my balls, I'll cut your throat."

"Pain," Madara said emphatically, without really raising his voice, "if you hurt a hair of his head, I'll forget myself."

Pain's jaw muscles worked. "Sure, boss."

"It's only for today until Zetsu is healthy again. Get along or I'll cancel your commission. Kakashi, did you listen?"

"When?" Kakashi asked.

"At the meeting," Madara emphasized impatiently. "The cases you're working on with Pain today."

Kakashi puffed out his cheeks briefly and shook his head.

Pain snorted contemptuously, Madara rolled his eyes. "What were you thinking about then?"

'My skin, like a fucking girl,' Kakashi thought, but would never admit it. He had worried whether he was unnecessarily clogging his pores with this cream, because he was sweating more than usual under the layer of fat. "I've been thinking about what I'm going to cook for you tonight."

"Aha," Madara replied. "Then I hope it will be worth it. Now beat it."

Pain stood up and Kakashi pushed himself away from the waist-high filing cabinet against which he had leaned over the meeting, as he had done almost every morning. Without communicating with Kakashi on any level, Pain walked out into the parking lot, where only one of the black Mercedes, Kakashi's Beetle, and Madara's Audi remained. Kakashi clamped himself into the passenger seat, fastened his seatbelt, and asked Pain, who turned the ignition key, causing the engine to howl loudly, "Where are we going now?"

"Don't talk to me," Pain replied, pressed a button on the CD player and an electric guitar penetrated Kakashi's eardrums at a volume that made him slap his hands to his ears like a toddler. "You listen to Slayer?" he shouted.

Pain turned up the volume even further and raced out of the parking lot. His driving style was much worse than Madara's, because Madara drove fast, but had the car noticeably under control. Pain braked abruptly, stepped on the gas just as unprepared and jerked the steering wheel around as if he had remembered only a millisecond earlier that he wanted to turn – and all this as a nausea-inducing cherry on the soft sounds of thrash metal. Even the free-fall tower yesterday had been less painful for Kakashi's stomach.

When Pain hit the brakes in front of a multi-storey block of flats in Moss Side, Kakashi was happy about the invention of the seat belt, unfastened it and got out with pudding knees. The fresh air and the silence in his ears – at the end of the street on a construction site they were sawing steel – did him good and he had to take a deep breath to prevent the greeting of his half-digested breakfast.

Without a word, Pain strode to the front door of the building and rang the bell of all the residents to open for him. Kakashi sneaked behind him, didn't want to arouse Pain's displeasure, nor did he want to know who they were about to rip money out of. It was probably best if he just showed presence and let Pain do his work.

In the stairwell on the third floor, they met Haku, of all people, who was standing in the open door to one of the flats with a stained T-shirt and shorts. "Yo, Kakashi!"

With his foot already on the next step, Kakashi paused. "Haku.. Hey, you live here?"

"Yes, Moss Side, I said so."

"That's right, you did."

Haku smiled and came closer in his rancid slippers. "What are you doing here? Did you get the neighbourhood wrong?"

"No, work's calling." Kakashi nodded to Pain, who had already arrived on the next floor.

"Oh sick, are you a loan shark now?"

"You know this guy?"

"I see him more often and I know who's walking around here."

"KID!" it echoed loudly through the bare stairwell.

Kakashi moaned. "I have to go back, otherwise he'll castrate me."

"And that would be a shame," Haku winked and Kakashi was taken aback before shaking his head and sprinting up the stairs, taking two steps at once. If Haku weren't so young, he might think about banging him. Although he lacked the desired pussy, Kakashi had felt the growing need to be the one fucking someone again since yesterday. He missed that feeling of a warm hole around the cock and that certain power and control when he struck. He was afraid of becoming effeminate if he only spread his legs. But Haku was taboo for Kakashi, he wasn't that kind of person. A maximum of two years younger than him, that he could still morally defend.

Pain was waiting for him upstairs in front of a door behind which lived a very old man with wrinkled skin and gnarled fingers. As silently agreed with himself, Kakashi stayed in the background and simply watched the scene. Pain spoke very calmly to the pensioner, explained to him the situation regarding the deadline of his loan and the man handed over a small bundle of notes, assured that he would have the missing five hundred pounds ready in two weeks, and had such agony in his eyes that Kakashi actually felt sorry for him. According to what Kakashi had heard, the man had needed money to finance the funeral of his deceased wife.

The next address had a similar fate in store: a young woman had needed money for a lawyer to divorce her violent ex-husband and obtain sole custody of her daughter, even though she had no training yet and the girl's father was a dentist. She even paid the full sum, a whopping five grand.

After the third address – a middle-aged couple who had had to completely relay their laminate flooring due to structural defects in the house, the legal dispute with the landlord had been going on for three years – Kakashi began to suspect that collector, or "hunter", as Pain had called it in the two sentences he exchanged with Kakashi, was not a job for him. His empathetic part, which was still much too large, would have forgiven all the people's debts and shit on profit. To Madara and his hunters, these were just names and numbers, tied to deadlines and interest rates, but behind every letter and digit was a life in which, for some reason, a lot of money had been needed in the short term. These were real people who they threatened solely with their presence.

Shortly after ten, when Pain and Kakashi were standing on the side of the road eating lunch with brutally loud music, Kakashi dared to turn down the volume of I Am the Law and talk to his forced colleague. "Pain, how do you do that?"

Pain gave him a pissed look from the driver's seat and turned up the radio again.

Kakashi didn't want to let it get him down, turned off the music completely, kept his hand on the button and said, "Answer me just this one question, then I'll leave you alone."

"You serious?!" Pain snapped. "You fucking pisser think your puppy license is your gold armour, right?! If you didn't suck Madara's dick, you wouldn't have such a big mouth."

"If I didn't suck Madara's dick, I wouldn't be here in the first place," Kakashi replied and was not at all ashamed to formulate something like that in this way. Everyone already knew what was going on between him and Madara, so he didn't need to downplay it or feel offended by it. And it seemed that Madara's lectures on acceptance had borne fruit, because he didn't care what Pain or anyone else thought of him being bisexual. After all, he couldn't change it, so why bitch about it? "But I do and that's why we both have to suffer from it right now. So. How do you do that?"

Pain still didn't seem very enthusiastic about having to talk to Kakashi at all, but he said grudgingly, "Just don't see them as people, but as sources of income. Each of them is old enough to know what they are getting into. If someone complains, it's their own fault."

"But some can't do anything about their situation. Don't you have pity?"

Pain snorted arrogantly. "With such subhumans? No. They had a choice and chose Akatsuki, were stupid and desperate enough to let themselves be fucked by adhesion contracts. Just like your father."

The side blow was not unexpected and Kakashi was surprised that he didn't feel anything about it. "But some may not have had a choice."

The eyes of the two met and an insensitivity seeped out of Pain's that Kakashi found strangely admiring. "You always have a choice," Pain said in a final tone, pulled Kakashi's hand off the radio with a painful grip and let Anthrax continue to rattle.

Kakashi rubbed his wrist and looked out of the windshield, lost in thought. You always had a choice.. Sakumo wouldn't have had to borrow the money from Madara, then none of this would have happened at all – but then Nikki would most likely have died or been forced into prostitution. Of course, the choice had been there, and Sakumo had had to live with the consequences. Huh.. Well, actually Kakashi had to. His father might have made a noble decision, but yes, actually it had been stupid. Why had he cared about a complete stranger somewhere in Africa?

And what did Kakashi care if someone needed a new car to avoid losing his job? Or if someone didn't have the money to pay for their sick dog's vet costs? They all had a choice, were autonomous beings, no one forced them to take out a loan – and so it wasn't Kakashi's fault that Pain had to get a little louder or make threats here and there. At one address, Kakashi even helped demolish part of the living room furnishings because a guy refused to pay – it was his choice, he could have avoided it after all. Cause and effect, simple as that.

Unexpectedly, this working day was a lesson for Kakashi that helped him move forward in his healing. Every person had a choice, and every choice had a consequence, and every consequence could be equally grave in a "what if" discussion – but it was one's own decision that had to be weighed up. Crying afterwards didn't help, you couldn't undo it anyway and had to deal with the result. You had to accept your own decisions.

Kakashi had decided – for Madara, for happiness. The consequence was that he submitted to Madara. It was a small sacrifice. He gave up his inferior character traits for a future full of pride. Madara was right, Kakashi wanted security. He wanted to live pain-free, and he only achieved this by giving up his self-criticism, his shame of his own being, his rampant empathy, his fear of rejection and loneliness, his doubts and his urge to please everyone – in short, everything that had dragged him down all his life, and detaching himself from this negativity. He had to take a radical approach in order to get closer to his goal. No more bonds, no more emotions. The wall around his heart had to be bigger, thicker, and more impregnable than it had ever been.

And the last address of the day put Kakashi to the test. Pain parked in Hale in front of a cozy little house with rhododendron in the garden and a small wooden swing on the oak tree. It was pretty here, as one was used to from bigwigs. Pain rang the bell, Kakashi stood a metre behind him with his hands in his pockets. Footsteps approached the door and when it opened, Kakashi's heart pounded excitedly. He knew this light blond hair just too well. "Hello?" he asked, his steel-blue eyes glid from Pain to Kakashi and widened. "Kakashi..?"

"Hi, Flash," Kakashi said indifferently. He found it surprisingly easy to keep his composure in front of his former favourite teacher. Just last week, he would have reacted insecure, embarrassed, apologized directly for this scene. But Kakashi no longer felt all this; he was rather angry, because this formerly friendly face reminded him of what he had lost. Maybe Yamato was right and Kakashi had changed, but in Kakashi's opinion that wasn't a bad thing, after all, old Kakashi's weaknesses had caused him to suffer. Only the new Kakashi was able to protect the little boy, shield him from the horrors of life.

"What are you doing here?" asked Minato, aghast.

"We're here to collect your debts," Kakashi replied, shrugging his shoulders. "But we should keep talking inside, shouldn't we? Or do you want your neighbours to know all about your money worries?"

Minato shook his head befuddled and let the two men into the house. Kakashi led the way, got an insane boost of self-confidence at Pain's surprised expression and casually strolled into the living room, which was directly to the left of the hallway. On the sofa by the bay window sat a rather pretty woman with belly-length, tomato-red hair. In her arms she held a colourful dumpling from which a blond tuft peeked out. When the men entered, she hugged the baby tighter and her expression became stiff. Kakashi took a quick look around. A small fire blazed in the fireplace – probably to keep the newborn warm – and everything was decorated with flowers and green plants. "It's nice here," he said to Minato, who pushed past Pain and hurried to his wife to offer her more protection from the hunters. "But well," Kakashi grinned spitefully, "as a teacher at a snob school, I would have been surprised by anything else." He tilted his head. "That makes me wonder why you urgently needed money."

"Since when do you work for Akatsuki?" Minato asked in an attempted firm voice.

"Since when do you call me on a first-name basis?"

Minato jerked his head. "Since I no longer have any respect for something like you."

Kakashi nodded ironically. "Understandable. I'm also not a fan of rapists or men in general who inflict violence on women. But that's not why we're here. Your time is up, you have to pay."

Minato crossed his arms. "I.." he started and rocked up and down on the ball of his foot, "I don't have the money yet."

"Oh? Why is that? Doesn't you earn well when you teach the children of stinking rich parents?" Kakashi teased.

Minato's features deepened. "You know nothing."

"Oh, sure." Kakashi clicked his tongue. "But I know that you owe money to our boss, and that he wants it back. You had a year to scrape together the ten grand plus the two thousand pounds in interest." Right now he was glad that he had seen Minato's contract, otherwise he would have made a fool of himself here. "So why don't you have it?"

"Artificial insemination is not cheap," Minato said with dignity. "And we have not yet been able to save the sum again."

"What a pity," Kakashi said and slowly moved towards the sofa. Minato took a step to the side and the woman held the baby even tighter. "Is that him? Your son? He has your hair, I see. I'm sorry for him."

"Don't come near my son," Minato admonished quietly.

"Why not?" laughed Kakashi. "Are you afraid that we'll take him as a pledge? After all, Madara's money is in him. So, it would only be logical for him to stay with us as a guarantor."

"Don't touch him.." Minato growled, got a heroic glint in his eyes.

"Oh, are you afraid for him? Is he of worth to you?" The anger in Kakashi was seething. "What accusations have to be made against him for this to change? Hm? What if it's your son who, at some point, is accused by an opportunistic cunt of abusing her? Do you stand up for him then? Will you defend him? Or do you write him off then? Will you toss him to life without helping him? As you did with me.." He stood directly in front of Minato, enjoying the fact that he was slightly taller. "You once said to me that you want to help me have a successful future, that you want to support me – almost like a son. Do you actually realize what that triggered in me? And how much it hurt when you couldn't even look at me afterwards? You were my mentor, Minato. And then you threw me away like I was rubbish. I wasn't even worth it to you to start an investigation. Rin claimed that I raped and stalked her – and you? You believed her. Because you never thought more of me. What if the same thing is done to your son, your real son?" He lowered his voice and asked with a vibrating throat, "What's the difference between him and me?"

Minato snorted hostilely. "You ask about the difference..? Naruto is my son, my flesh and blood. You are nothing more than a student, a boy among many."

"One among many.." Kakashi repeated and couldn't stop it. He strove for indifference, but it was just as if Minato was stabbing a dagger into his exposed, defenceless heart. He pushed Minato backwards, took a swing and punched him in the face with his fist. "ONE AMONG MANY?!" He was blind with hatred, pounced on this man he had once looked up to, whom he had once trusted, dragged him to the ground and beat him, this once benevolent face in which there was now nothing but panic and disappointment. "You have awakened hope in me! You put lies in my head, I was special, had great things ahead of me! You betrayed me! I was NEVER worth anything to you!"

Behind him, someone was calling his name, a baby was screaming, but Kakashi didn't pay attention to his surroundings. He fended off the person who wanted to drag him away from Minato, sinking his fist again into the blurred, skin-coloured spot below him, speckles of red appeared in it.

"It's all YOUR fault! If you had truly believed in me, none of this would have happened..! Then everything would be fine..." He sobbed, saliva wetting his chin. "Then everything would still be fine..."

A blow, of the force of an animal gone wild, hit him on the left shoulder. Searing pain spread and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Kakashi screamed, let go of Minato, and he was thrown backwards like a trembling kitten. Pain dug into the collar of his T-shirt and glared at him fiercely. "ARE YOU MAD?!"

Kakashi spat in his face, scratched his wrists and hit him in the side with his swinging knee. Pain let go of him and Kakashi scrambled to his feet, wanted to attack Pain in his rage, but the latter blocked Kakashi, kept him in a chokehold and hissed in his ear from behind, "Now stop this shit, you fucking son of a bitch!"

Only now did Kakashi notice that the red-haired woman had left the baby on the sofa and was standing between Minato and the other men, raising a red-hot poker like a two-handed sword. "Get out of here, you bastards!"

"Kushina.." Minato croaked from the ground. He held his bleeding nose and had leaned on the other arm. "Please, Kushina, take Naruto and go upstairs."

"No," Kushina said firmly. "I won't let him hurt you." She nodded provocatively. "Piss off, otherwise I'll call the police. And never let yourselves be seen here again!"

"Okay, ma'am, we're leaving," Pain tried to de-escalate the situation. "But Mister Uchiha still wants his money. I give you a week, then you pay. Otherwise, we'll be back." He released Kakashi from the stranglehold, but before he could do or say anything, he had grabbed him by the neck like a belligerent puppy and pulled him outside. As soon as they had left the property, he threw him forward, so that Kakashi stumbled and had to hold on to the bonnet of the Mercedes. "Have you lost your fucking marbles?!" he roared and pushed Kakashi deeper onto the black metal. "This was our first visit! We as hunter are tasked with only getting violent the second time! This is a question of controlled intimidation. If you go all out, you risk people running away. Situation analysis, you stupid piss!"

"Shut your mouth!" Kakashi yelled back. "You were just standing around and watching!"

"Don't you dare accuse me of anything!" Pain snarled. "YOU have lost your temper and may have robbed Madara of twelve grand! Now swing your fucking ass into the car and come up with words to explain it to him!"

He slammed the heels of his hands against Kakashi's shoulders one last time, which caused the pain on his left upper arm to flare up again. He hissed and looked at the burn wound peeking sooty and shimmering through the sleeve of his T-shirt. "Fuck.." he cursed softly, wiped his tear-wet face once, held his hand to his elbow to relieve pain and got in. Pain drove them back to Cheetham Hill, where he rushed past Konan into Madara's office with the seven black envelopes full of money and Kakashi in tow.

The Uchiha looked up from his documents, took a drag on his cigarette, scanned the two and concluded, "What happened?"

Pain threw the envelopes on the desk. "Winston pays the missing five hundred in a week, Smith is through, we had to help Brown and could only get a thousand, Jones asks for a month for the rest, I gave him two weeks.." Pain rattled off the entire working day, providing his boss with all the necessary details, who opened the envelopes and checked the money in them at the same time. ".. and Namikaze.. Well," Pain ended his monologue and looked at Kakashi with folded arms, who kept staring at the corner of the desk. "Our puppy will explain that to you."

Even without seeing him, Kakashi noticed Madara's gaze on himself. "I listen?"

Kakashi took a deep breath and murmured, "I messed up."

"How did you mess up?"

"I.. I know Minato. He was my teacher and mentor at St. Kensington Academy."

"I know," Madara said, Kakashi's eyes twitched up. Madara's expression was just as expressionless as it was this morning. He turned to Pain. "Here, your wages. Finish early today, I'll give you the difference to your target hours as compensation for having endured the puppy." He stretched out a wad of money, which Pain accepted, leafed through and shoved into his pocket. "That's very generous, thank you."

"Now get out of here," Madara said coldly, lit a fresh cigarette and when Pain left the two alone, he leaned back in his chair, put the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other and dragged for a long time. "Explain to me, Kakashi, why did you freak out?"

Puzzled, Kakashi shook his head. "How do you know that I freaked out?"

Madara's left eyebrow rose a millimetre and thick smoke briefly clouded his piercing gaze. "Because I know you. I knew you had a past with this guy. He brought you to this elite school, got you the scholarship for it. He must have been important to you, so I assigned his case to Pain so that you would be confronted with your past. Well, you didn't pass the test."

"Test..?" Kakashi breathed incredulously. "You.. you wanted to test me if I could cope with the man who once meant a lot to me?"

"Well recognized. One could almost think you were intelligent, but only almost. I assumed he must have been a father figure to you, and so he was the last link to your puny life. It had to be cut, and I wanted to see if you were able to do it on your own. It seems that you are not. You're not ready to leave all that behind." Madara dragged, slowly blew out the smoke, and said, "Kakashi, you need to detach yourself from your past. I don't care how you do it, but I don't want you to be controlled by your emotions. You must not let yourself be taken in by it anymore. These people and feelings have no place in your future. Dull yourself, no matter how, otherwise you'll lose your worth."

Kakashi gasped and blinked dazedly. "No.."

"What, no?" Madara asked briskly.

"I don't want to lose my worth.." Kakashi whispered with a scratchy throat.

"Then you know what you have to do," Madara said, swinging his cigarette around. "Fuck the people, Kakashi. Finally internalize this message and live by it."

"Yes, I will."

"Good. Konan is a trained nurse, she'll take a look at your arm. Here is your wage from this week." He handed Kakashi some notes, which Kakashi accepted in amazement. "Why so much? I only get 225 pounds."

Madara was again busy stowing the contents of the envelopes in the cash box. "Your weekly wage plus the two percent of the daily sum collected. I pay my employees all equally, regardless of whether they messed up a mission or not."

This somewhat dampened Kakashi's brief euphoria about the pretty notes in his hand. "Are you going to get into trouble with Minato now because of me?" he asked timidly.

"No, in the worst case I take care of it personally." The cash box disappeared into a safe in the filing cabinet.

"Wow," Kakashi blurted out. "That's.. Thank you."

Madara took a drag on his cigarette and assessed Kakashi sullenly. "I'm not doing that because of you. This is still about twelve thousand pounds. Look at it positively: If I also fail to get my money, I'll just put the sum on your account." He grinned diabolically. "Then you will not only pay off your father's debts, but also those of your teacher. Hopefully your back doesn't suffer from this burden, I don't want to fuck a cripple."

'How nice,' Kakashi thought, but didn't say anything more. He said goodbye until the afternoon, put the 685 pounds in his wallet and went to Konan. "Hey, Madara says you can treat my shoulder."

Konan leisurely put aside a small, blue tube and dabbed a transparent gel on her cuticles. "Aha, did he say that, yes? Is that an order from him or is it more of a wish from you?" She blew on her fingertips and looked at Kakashi challengingly.

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "I was injured on a mission and Madara explicitly emphasized that I should go to you and you should treat my shoulder. So, it comes from him." Why was a discussion necessary here at all?!

A piece of chewing gum disappeared into Konan's mouth, she chewed it calmly, got up and walked down the hall to the treatment room. "Move your ass, boy," she smacked and snapped her finger.

Kakashi followed her, closed the door behind him and sat down on the squeaky couch with the stained, turquoise cushion.

Konan put on latex gloves, looked Kakashi up and down and said with a larcenous smile on his lips, "Take off your clothes."