[week 33, day 2 | accidental voice]
[Sasuke opens his eyes. The rain has stopped. He had thought the hollow patter of drops on the rocks-on his skin, in the scattered puddles of blood-would be the last sounds he ever heard. And yet, tragically, his eyes are open and he finds himself staring at nothing. Blurs. He blinks rapidly. Leaves. Sky. Blue.
Other senses awaken. Birdsong and the ( Read more... )
The answer, he wishes, wasn't as absurd as it is has been. All this talk of gods and great deities that were always only the stuff of imagination, for men who were foolish enough to believe that prayers to beings in the sky would somehow be answered. He had not believed in gods in many, many years -- and nothing, so far, has been able to prove their existence. And yet, the alternative -- that Uchiha Madara had brought them here to keep them out of the war -- seems even less appealing, at this present moment.
Sasuke is anything but stable.
And Kakashi doesn't want to ruin what small chance he might even have with the boy. ]
Some say the gods brought us here to teach us about harmony. Others seem to think that we are here to fight in their war.
[ Kakashi begins quietly, canting his head a little. ]
Another possibility is that we've just been pulled through a temporal and dimensional gap in universes by some strange occurrence that has yet to be determined.
[ This explanation may prove to make more sense to Sasuke. ]
I can't tell you exactly why any of us are here. But here we are.
Reply
And here it is. The mockery. The trick. The lie and the charade he had known would be found lurking beneath Kakashi's words, behind his mask.
Sasuke's punishment for the murder of his brother: to live. To be. Here.
He would give anything, just now, for Kakashi to disappear. For his own body to return to the grass, and for it to swallow him up instead rather than the rising tide of numbness sweeping over him. ]
Why are you here?
[ In this world, but moreover, in this place, now, with me? ]
Reply
So he does what he does best.
He closes the distance between them, until they are just ten feet apart.
Lets his eye curl into a gentle arc, and says, just as gently: ]
Because I wanted to see my kawaii student.
[ He misdirects. ]
Reply
Something is waiting there, just underneath Sasuke's skin, simmering, slowly heating to a boil, rolling and burning him up from the inside.
He wants to scream at Kakashi.
He wants to pry loose his own stiff mask of control and rage at him, ask him where the hell he was the last time and hadn't he been worth coming after? Or had it only been Naruto who longed to return him to the village and make their broken team whole again? Had it been Kakashi's idea to replace him?
But what Sasuke wants and what he needs and what he actually gets are never one in the same. ]
I'm no longer your student.
[ A pause. Dark hair brushed away from darker eyes that swirl with unexpressed (inexpressible) emotion. ]
And you're no longer my teacher.
Reply
Kakashi's eye remains in that arc, and though his fingers tighten to fists in his pockets, the set of his shoulders remains deceptively lax. And then he says, still just as lightly: ]
Ah, that's where you're wrong, Sasuke. You'll always be my student.
[ Sasuke can deny him. Can deny this. Can deny that there had been a man and a boy in a tree long ago, and maybe that boy never called the man sensei but what was between them was as undeniable as the bark beneath their feet and the wire that had the boy tied up in that tree. As unmistakable as the scars that line the boy's hands. Those hands shook with resolve, with pain, scorched with lightning and barely capable of tearing open the packaging of a ration bar while they sat alongside a river in July and counted the stars and caught fireflies. Sasuke didn't call him sensei then, and maybe he'll never call him sensei, but that doesn't make Sasuke any less his student.
Doesn't erase the scars on his hands.
Those scars belong to him, but they belong to Kakashi too. Because Kakashi was the one who put them there when he gave him a handful of lightning to hold. ]
Maybe you have nothing left to learn, and there's nothing more I can teach you. But that doesn't change how I'll always see you.
Reply
[ Sasuke opens his mouth to retort. I'm not a child any longer.
But the distance between them has closed, and when he raises his eyes to meet the man's gaze as equals and destroy that idealized image once and for all, something draws them higher. Sunlight glints off the foreign hitai-ate, illuminating the symbol etched into the surface. But it doesn't represent any village Sasuke has heard of or visited in his years of absence. It simply reads 'nin,' as if Kakashi needs to advertise. As if the jounin uniform and hitai-ate aren't enough to differentiate him from civilians and nobility, so now he must spell it out in writing. He may not know the village, but he is sure that is no Leaf hitai-ate. ]
You never seemed like the type. To defect.
[ But just before Sasuke's lips can twist into a smirk of satisfaction at having caught Kakashi in some sort of double-dealing, his gut squeezes and rolls and gurgles and his stomach growls loudly, all the more amplified by the surrounding tranquility. His hand automatically grasps his middle, face comically rearranged into a mess of consternation and confusion.]
Reply
At the question, and at the growl. He shouldn't be all too surprised that Sasuke's hungry. He is a sixteen year old boy, after all. Fresh out of battle, too. Sasuke's probably famished. But first, he should probably answer Sasuke's question... or they'll never leave Himorogi. ]
Ah, this?
[ Kakashi raises a finger up and taps lightly at the metal plate of his hitai-ate. The mark of the allied nations. ]
This is the insignia of an alliance that was formed between the five great shinobi nations to fight against Akatsuki.
[ He explains, though he knows such an explanation will only be confusing to Sasuke. Because around the time of Itachi's death, there certainly wasn't any alliance of the sort forming, and Pain's invasion of Konoha was quite some time away.
There is much that they will need to talk about. To clarify. ]
Why don't we go get you something to eat, and I'll explain?
Reply
[ Another vague explanation crafted to placate his curiosity? Kakashi's 'answers' only beg more questions.
An alliance on the scale described is unthinkable, impossible both logistically and diplomatically. It has Sasuke's mind running in circles, filling up with possibilities and inconsistencies. If there had been such an alliance, he would have heard of it. He would have noticed the strange hitai-ate before. There would have been gossip, whisperings. There would have been outright announcements and the flaunting of so much power. Such is the nature of humanity.
The last time he had seen Naruto and Sakura, both had worn the symbol of the Leaf, he is sure of it.
His attempts to grasp all that Kakashi has alluded to are interrupted by another complaint from his stomach. It seems the growling noises can't be suppressed, no matter how hard he tries, and betray the hunger he is only now beginning to feel.
He takes a single step closer, a concession of sorts, entering Kakashi's personal space. Since Kakashi hasn't tried to attack him, he will agree to do the same. ]
Reply
[ Kakashi doesn't say back home, because he knows far too well that Konoha is anything but home for Sasuke, and it hasn't been for a very long time. Not even the remnants of his ghosts remain, with Konoha having been blown apart by Pain. Only the pieces. They lie scattered, fragmented, uprooted right from the foundations where they once stood. Like Sasuke. All torn up with only difficult earth to put down roots that don't want to go down.
The irony doesn't escape Kakashi.
He turns, nodding towards the treeline. It's best if they make tracks before anyone else -- before Naruto -- arrives. Sasuke has plenty of questions, and Kakashi's willing to answer them -- but not here. Not now. ]
Come on, let's get going.
[ He doesn't wait for Sasuke's answer.
He already knows Sasuke will follow, as he directs chakra to his feet and jumps into the trees. ]
Reply
Where exactly are they going? He might ask, but it doesn't really matter. He follows because, in truth, he has neither a choice nor a preference. Here. Or there.
Chakra flares and his body awakens, as if from a deep sleep, a catatonic state. The wind rushes through his hair as he takes to the trees. It roars in his ear, and he loses himself to the simplest of tasks--running and jumping from limb to limb.
When Sasuke catches up to Kakashi, he follows only a few steps behind, falling into old habits and muscle memory. He can't be bothered to speak, to form the letters with his mouth that would only be met with more cryptic remarks from the man who never could give him a straight answer. So he remains silent.
As frustrating as Kakashi could be, this is also expected, and Sasuke's ashamed to find the familiarity soothing, content to continue this way for the duration of the trip. ]
Reply
Leave a comment