[Fic] Seeking Rin -- Chapter 06
Title: Seeking Rin
Chapter: 6 - Espressivo
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4036
Summary: When Sakura, newly in a relationship with Kakashi, finds out about Rin, she makes a choice that's hard on them both. Even worse, there's a mysterious illness cropping up in Konoha that even Tsunade can't heal. And what does Ino have to do with it? Kakashi x Rin, KakaSaku.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 6 of ? Unbeta’d.
Also on my LJ and on FF.net
Kakashi flings himself over rooftops recklessly, at incredible speeds, trusting to years and years worth of experience to keep him from falling even when he isn't paying attention to his surroundings. His head reels, his sight warped and the wind against his bare chest feels far too cold for what the temperature is.
He doesn't know what to make of Sakura's words. They ring, dancing around his thoughts as he thinks himself in circles, and he doesn't understand.
Oh, he understands her point of view, at least some what now and while it's disappointing--horribly so--he knows her and can see how she got to her conclusions.
Agreeing with them is a different matter but he's going to at least figure out a few things before talking to her again. Kakashi wishes he could remember his dreams. Why would he have been dreaming about Rin? Had it been in the way that Sakura had implied? Or had it been a nightmare mitigated only by Sakura's presence and so the cry was softened?
He doesn't know.
He's not sure there's a way to find out either. Short of letting a Yamanaka rifle through his mind that is and he's not keen on that.
The small clearing, with the stone that's been both an ache and a comfort over the years comes into view. Kakashi stops, just outside of the clearing, and leans against a tree. The bark is rough on his skin and he realizes that his feet are not particularly impressed that he's been running about without sandals.
The minor pains are almost soothing. They help to ground him and he needs it.
Rin sits on the stone, her legs crossed as she balances there. Her elbows rest on her knees. She looks thoughtful as she studies the ground and gives no indication that she's noticed him or not.
He watches her, his breathing harsh and heavy to his ears and wonders what he's supposed to do.
"That," he says, bewildered, "wasn't all me."
It's ridiculous, that he hopes for an answer from her. When he thinks back over the conversation, he can remember everything he and Sakura said, but what happened before and after that while Naruto and Ino--
His anger swells, uncontrollable, and he staggers under the force of it before forcing himself to complete his thought:
Ino had also been there.
"What's wrong with me?" he murmurs, staring at his hands. They're shaking with rage that he's barely got a cap on.
There's something in him that would desperately like to go and do--do something he's not going to think about because he won't do it and that's it.
Rin's arms, small and still those of a child, wrap around his waist.
"When did you move?" he asks because he hadn't noticed. She doesn't answer and he closes his eyes and pretends she's real.
If he's going mad, which he must be, he thinks that this is the best part of it. For a little while, he's got Rin back, even while everything else in his life is falling apart.
He stirs. "Do you think there's a chance Sakura and I can figure this all out?" he asks in a voice that only she'll be able to hear.
Kakashi doesn't hear her answer but he knows when she gives one--she nods, the movement enough for him to feel it through her embrace. He sighs. That's a comfort. "I'm not very good at that sort of thing," he says, "and neither is she."
Which, he thinks, is an understatement.
A few moments later he asks another question. "Do you know what's wrong with me, Rin?"
She lets him go and he watches as she steps back a few feet. Her face is serious and determined.
"What do you know?" he asks her, unsettled by her actions and wishing that--that this was even real, because it can't be real.
It can't be.
Rin smiles, but it's a sad smile. She lifts her hands up and places them, pressed together, under her right ear, like she's sleeping. Then she looks at him, a demand in her eyes.
"I know," he says. "I do need sleep. But do you really think I can?"
What he doesn't ask but wishes he dared was 'will this make more sense in the morning'?
His anger doesn't surge at that and Kakashi breathes a sigh of relief. Surely there's time enough for him to figure out what is his problem with Sakura's friend--he doesn't dare think her name and call the rage back--once he's rested, Kakashi thinks. He's too tired to come to the proper conclusions anyway.
Rin smiles at him.
"Why aren't you talking?" he asks her curiously. "You said hello to me before."
She shrugs at him, her lips pursed like she's at a loss for how to explain it. Then, after a second, Rin just shakes her head.
Kakashi shakes his. "Madness," he murmurs, then holds his hand out to her. He remembers fuzzily that he's supposed to report anything out of the ordinary to Hokage-sama.
But that had been to do with the illness not with his own personal demons, he thinks. "Come on, Rin," he says, "let's go home and rest. You'll watch out for me, won't you?"
Her hand in his is an impossibility but when she wraps her fingers around his, he's sure he can feel them. She tugs him over to the stone and kneels down, still holding his hand. Kakashi follows.
"Hey," he says quietly, once he's on his knees. "Minato-sensei, Obito, things are pretty complicated right now. But... but don't worry about me, Rin's looking after everything. You know that she always cared more about keeping me healthy than I did..."
He trails off for a long moment before getting up. "Good bye," he says, then shakes his head. "I'm tired," he explains a bit ruefully. "Good night."
Then he turns away from the stone, Rin still a silent but comforting presence beside him. He looks down at her. "Can you keep up with me?" he asks. "I'm going to go fast."
She makes a face at him, as if to say that of course she can keep up with him and what does he take her for? Kakashi, despite everything, feels a little lighter at the laughter in her eyes.
"Alright," he says, "ready, set--go!"
He goes so fast that his body is little more than a blur as he flies out of the clearing and then up onto the roofs. There's only one more day until he's got to report to Hokage-sama and head out on a mission and he suspects that he's going to be spending most of that in sleep.
But then, he thinks, as he darts from rooftop to rooftop, there are far worse things he could be doing and these last two days have been an exercise in proving that.
He's so occupied in his thoughts that he finds himself passing by Sakura's apartment automatically and slowing. He can spot her windows from here and he watches as Sakura walks past the window in her kitchen.
Rin tugs at his hand and he looks at her. Her eyes are worried and she's frowning at him. He realizes that he's being a bit of a stalker and turns to go when Ino walks past the open window sipping from a cup and he staggers, going to his knees as the rage swamps him.
This isn't me, he thinks as he struggles to find some measure of control against the heaving, rushing fury. This isn't my anger.
Whose is it then? He knows his anger and his is cold.
This is warm.
Rin's tug on his hand becomes a lifeline as he forces himself to stumble after her, one foot in front of the other, over and over until he's breathing just a little easier and the rage as subsided back under the surface of his skin.
"What's going on?" he asks her again.
She lowers her eyes and shakes her head. Her grip on his hand tightens. Kakashi lets his breath sharply and follows as she leads the way, no longer at their breakneck pace because he's certain that if he tries that, he'll collapse for real and somehow, he suspects, she knows that.
The further they get from Sakura's apartment, the better he feels. Better, he thinks, being relative but the fact remains that the rage quiets and tucks itself away and he can focus more on the pain of the last few days--and there's enough pain to go around, really. He doesn't understand why his friends would hurt him in the name of looking out for him.
He wonders if he would understand it had he been more social as a younger man. He's getting too old for this.
As Kakashi approaches his apartment he realizes that Naruto is leaning against the door. He looks worried about something and Kakashi realizes that, perhaps, just disappearing hadn't been the best of plans.
"Didn't Sakura tell you to make sure I got back?" Kakashi asks, coming to a stop in front of Naruto.
Naruto pushes himself away from the door. "I knew where you were," he says, "I kept an eye out on you."
Kakashi doesn't need to ask how: Naruto is still as casual and careless with his chakra as he's always been and he can get away with strewing kage bunshin around the village and maintaining them without ever breaking a sweat.
"So you just left me there?"
Blue eyes narrow at him and he's glad that they're so obviously Naruto's because he can feel the rage bubble for a second, reminded of someone else's eyes. "Who am I to drag someone away from there?" Naruto asks. "You were busy."
Kakashi wonders what Naruto saw him doing there. He doesn't ask. Naruto's right that there's a time to drag a companion back to their bed but while they're at the stone isn't one of them, unless they collapse.
He's close to that point but he can and does appreciate the way Naruto has given him as much privacy as he could. "Thank you," he says, and brushes by him, realizing that the doors aren't locked for the first time.
With a soft noise of dismay, he enters his apartment and is unsurprised when Naruto follows him. "Planning to stay the night?" he drawls and heads to the fridge. He takes out a water bottle. He needs to eat but Kakashi knows if he tries to eat anything while so wrung out that he'll just make himself ill. He needs sleep more.
The water is cold as it trickles down his throat and, after a moment's contemplation, he tosses another bottle at Naruto.
"Yeah," Naruto says, a little bit defiantly as he catches the bottle. "You've been weird, Kakashi-sensei."
He wants to argue that. Scathingly point out that he's been dumped and has had very little rest since getting back from a mission and has eaten only once in that that time. That would make anyone act weird. Kakashi just drinks deeply from the bottle and says nothing.
Weird.
That's as good a description as any for what's been going on. He hasn't been himself, though he feels almost normal right now. It's comforting to know that he still can. Rin leans against the counter by him and smiles up at him. Kakashi knows what she wants and runs his free hand through his hair.
"Stay then," he says, though he hates having company over and he's only never minded if it's Sakura but that's an entirely different matter. "Take the couch." Which was already prepared with blankets and a pillow. "I'll be in my room."
"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto says, "do you know what's wrong? Shouldn't you go to the old lady and see if she can help you?"
It's on the tip of Kakashi's tongue to mention that he's already been before the 'old lady' and that his tests came up clean. He doesn't though, because it is true that just because they'd come up clean then doesn't mean they'd come up clean now. "I'll think about it," he says and wonders if Naruto is going to drag him off somewhere else now. "And no, I don't know what's going on."
Which is true on so many levels that if he were the crying sort, Kakashi wryly thinks that he'd be weeping into a pillow. As he's not, he just finishes off his water and tosses the empty bottle in the garbage.
"You didn't get hurt on your mission, did you?"
Kakashi shakes his head. "Just a scratch," he says, glancing down at his arm and realizes for the first time that it has already healed so seamlessly that it's like it never happened. "It's clean."
"Alright," Naruto sighs, sounding unhappy.
Kakashi doesn't blame him.
If Naruto is unhappy, that's nothing compared to how Kakashi feels and he thinks that's fair, in this world where nothing has been fair lately. "Just go to sleep," Kakashi says, tossing the words over his shoulder. "And maybe when I wake up you'll be done playing nursemaid."
"I'm not!" Naruto protests with indignation, right on cue, and it means that Kakashi is smiling slightly under the mask as he heads into his room. Rin trails him in and despite the way he really and truly does hate people staring at his face, he gets rid of the hitae-ate and his mask. He's slept in both of them before, but he's far too tired to put up with anything that keeps him from sleeping as deeply as possible.
He stretches, then leans against the door, his hands flying through a few seals before he presses his fingers against the door frame. There's the soft hum of jutsu becoming active. Kakashi turns, pleased with his work, and finds Rin frowning at him.
"Don't give me that," he says. "It won't keep him out. It will just let me know if he tries to come in."
Rin's frown eases and he considers her as he pulls back the blankets on his bed and crawls in. "Are you going to sleep?" he asks drowsily.
He doesn't see her shake her head, though he feels her hand when she rests it against his forehead, but then Kakashi is tumbling down the long fall to sleep and everything goes dark.
His breath is harsh in his ears and he pauses, taking a few seconds to reorient himself and just catch his breath. It's the air here, he knows, that makes him feel like he's out of shape. It's hot and muggy and so humid that each breath feels like he's inhaling water.
His team is arrayed behind him. He's playing point. Kakashi glances at them to make sure they're all doing as well as possible. Sweat beads down his chest, his back, the hollows of his knees and armpits, down his neck. It's disgusting and worse--they've seen no sign of their target.
They'd been hired to find a few missing-nin and eliminate them. Which, he thinks, so far has been an entirely futile endeavor. If they're here, and the village they'd checked out that morning had confirmed sightings of missing nin, then the enemy had the home-ground advantage.
They can have it, Kakashi thinks as he and his team advance like a well oiled machine. The area was swampy, in all sorts of greens and browns, and reeking heavily of rot while vegetation grows around them in riotous confusion.
There's more flowers here than he's ever seen before.
Most of them, he's pretty sure, are poisonous.
That's why all of them are carrying enough rations to last for two weeks. If they can't find the target in that time, they'll head back to Konoha to restock and then head back out--because they don't get paid if they can't find the enemy.
Kakashi swats a gnat the size of his hand away from him and breaths carefully through his mask. "Keep moving," he says, and pretends he doesn't feel like moaning the way they do. If they can't see that he's as tired as they are then they'll push themselves further and harder with less complaints. "We've got another six hours before we can break for the night."
He doesn't mention the fact that they're going to have a hassle and a half in finding a dry place to sleep. Half swamp-half rainforest, he already hates this place and they've been here for maybe four hours.
Summoning his dogs would be useless and he's loathe to inflict this place on them, even if it might give them an edge in locating their target. He thinks of what Sakura would say if she heard him now--he's whining definitely--and has to conceal a smile.
Then he leaps to the next tree, as silent as a shadow and deadlier than the flowers. His team follows after, as quiet as he is, and they continue their search.
Kakashi turns and shifts restlessly in his sleep, flinging one hand up to cover his eyes as he sweats.
Rin watches him, an expression of utmost concentration on her face.
They've been here for four days now and he dreams longingly of dry ground and dry heat and a breath of air that doesn't feel like he's drinking from a pool of dirty water.
Kakashi shakes his head and creeps forward. They've found indications of human habitation and now they're all on full alert as they make their way from tree to tree, inching around the giant trunks and stepping carefully from branch to branch as they make their way through the trees.
They don't even know how many there are.
But then, that's why this is an S-ranked mission, and they'll get paid very well for it, assuming that they live. Kakashi tells himself to stop brooding on things that are negative and ignores the tiny thought that it's just being practical. After all, S-ranked missions have the highest rate of death for a reason.
Not on my watch, he thinks firmly and then freezes as he spots a shinobi, not one of his team, through the foliage. The man is wide and tall and built like he could take down buildings with the brush of his hand.
Which, Kakashi thinks, is pretty close to the truth. He recognizes this man from the bingo book and swears inwardly. This battle isn't going to be an easy one. They don't have a poison specialist with them and despite the man's form and stance, which is close to that of a taijutsu master, Kakashi can remember the words in the book quite clearly.
This man is a poison specialist with a flair for human experimentation.
Like Orochimaru had been, Kakashi thinks, and tells himself that this man can't be as strong as Orochimaru, that he's got a better chance here and now.
Maybe that's even the truth but they never get the chance to see.
Kakashi collapses like a puppet with cut strings as all around him, his team falls one by one, and the last thing he remembers is wondering what had hit them, and then... nothing.
He's never been defeated so easily before. Failure is bitter.
Rin's eyes spark with emotion as sweat and tears work their way down her face in equal measure. She stands, still as a statue, beside Kakashi's bed and her gaze never leaves Kakashi's face.
Her face is anguished.
Kakashi's is worse.
Everything after his capture is fuzzy despite the way that he feels like he should and is supposed to and has to remember something that's desperately important... he can't.
Kakashi realizes he's dreaming, in order to be thinking like that.
The memories still linger just out of touch. He writhes on his bed, face agonized, and fingers digging into the mattress with enough force to rip the sheets.
They failed their mission, the memories insist, but what happened after that?
(He'd reported that he'd succeeded in the mission to Tsunade-sama.)
Pain, sharp as a piece of glass, that stings like someone has dropped salt in his wounds, forces this thoughts onwards and Kakashi fumbles for an answer that he can make sense of.
(How was a mission that was a failure... a success?)
He doesn't remember. He remembers them collapsing. Kakashi remembers watching as was carried past him, limp and lifeless except for their breathing, as the man built like an ox brought them one by one to his lair.
Kakashi remembers dark walls and icy metal and Kakashi remembers pain and blood and...
His body curls in on itself, resisting the need to find out more about what had happened, and in his sleep he makes a noise like a plea. He doesn't want to remember it.
(But how did they succeed?)
He can't think. He doesn't know.
He remembers something about his teammates being incompatible and their screams as they are forced to see if they can be anyway.
He remembers screaming for them, when their voices died, and then he remembers...
Joyous laughter filling the air as his body was wracked with pain and agony, and the feel of something else, something darker and crueler curling around his thoughts and then he wasn't alone and he wasn't ever going to be alone.
(But that doesn't make sense.)
Kakashi remembers stepping over the bodies of his team, he remembers the way that their eyes were unseeing and empty and peculiarly colourless when in life they'd been all sorts of colours. Blue and green and browns, nothing unusual.
But they had no colour left to them now.
He remembers the way their hair had gone as white as his and how their had limbs shifted, sliding bonelessly when he'd given into faint curiosity and nudged them. Kakashi remembers staring down at them and not understanding anything.
(How had they gotten back to Konoha?)
He remembers leaving, his team around him, and all of them silent as they made their way out of the swamp and then picking up the pace as they ran, faster and faster towards Konoha and safety.
Kakashi remembers the laughter that lingered in his ears for the first half of the trip. That and the feeling of being embraced by something he can't see.
It doesn't, hasn't, bothered him.
(Why not?)
He remembers orders given in a low voice before they leave but can't remember their content. Just that it was important and it was bad and it was something to do with everything else that he can't remember.
Rin sways on her feet, looking exhausted and past exhausted, and still her gaze never leaves Kakashi's face. Her eyes are painfully bright and her hands are clenched in front of her as she braces herself against the bed.
She can no longer stand on her own.
Kakashi tosses and turns, caught in a nightmare that had been real.
(What was truth and what was a lie?)
The journey back to Konoha passes in a flash, a blink, of an eye, and the whole way there his teammates are silent and that's unusual but he's fine with that because there's the whisper in his head that reminds him of his orders, over and over, the murmur and the rage and what he's supposed to do.
(What is he supposed to do?)
He can't remember.
Kakashi wakes with a gasp, a full ten hours after going to bed, in time to see Rin's ghost waver and fade even as he reaches out for her.
Memories scatter like shattered glass at the sudden sense of loss he feels as he stares at the place where she'd stood.
He's alone.
Kakashi shivers as the rage murmurs.
He can't remember his dreams.
"Lost the connection," a girl says, sounding exhausted. "We're going to have to move this up. You weren't kidding about the progression."
"I told you, didn't I?" He leans against the girl's bed and crosses his arms.
Both of them stare at the monitor that shows Hatake sitting in bed looking bereft.
Previous Chapter || Index || Next Chapter
Chapter: 6 - Espressivo
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4036
Summary: When Sakura, newly in a relationship with Kakashi, finds out about Rin, she makes a choice that's hard on them both. Even worse, there's a mysterious illness cropping up in Konoha that even Tsunade can't heal. And what does Ino have to do with it? Kakashi x Rin, KakaSaku.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 6 of ? Unbeta’d.
Also on my LJ and on FF.net
Kakashi flings himself over rooftops recklessly, at incredible speeds, trusting to years and years worth of experience to keep him from falling even when he isn't paying attention to his surroundings. His head reels, his sight warped and the wind against his bare chest feels far too cold for what the temperature is.
He doesn't know what to make of Sakura's words. They ring, dancing around his thoughts as he thinks himself in circles, and he doesn't understand.
Oh, he understands her point of view, at least some what now and while it's disappointing--horribly so--he knows her and can see how she got to her conclusions.
Agreeing with them is a different matter but he's going to at least figure out a few things before talking to her again. Kakashi wishes he could remember his dreams. Why would he have been dreaming about Rin? Had it been in the way that Sakura had implied? Or had it been a nightmare mitigated only by Sakura's presence and so the cry was softened?
He doesn't know.
He's not sure there's a way to find out either. Short of letting a Yamanaka rifle through his mind that is and he's not keen on that.
The small clearing, with the stone that's been both an ache and a comfort over the years comes into view. Kakashi stops, just outside of the clearing, and leans against a tree. The bark is rough on his skin and he realizes that his feet are not particularly impressed that he's been running about without sandals.
The minor pains are almost soothing. They help to ground him and he needs it.
Rin sits on the stone, her legs crossed as she balances there. Her elbows rest on her knees. She looks thoughtful as she studies the ground and gives no indication that she's noticed him or not.
He watches her, his breathing harsh and heavy to his ears and wonders what he's supposed to do.
"That," he says, bewildered, "wasn't all me."
It's ridiculous, that he hopes for an answer from her. When he thinks back over the conversation, he can remember everything he and Sakura said, but what happened before and after that while Naruto and Ino--
His anger swells, uncontrollable, and he staggers under the force of it before forcing himself to complete his thought:
Ino had also been there.
"What's wrong with me?" he murmurs, staring at his hands. They're shaking with rage that he's barely got a cap on.
There's something in him that would desperately like to go and do--do something he's not going to think about because he won't do it and that's it.
Rin's arms, small and still those of a child, wrap around his waist.
"When did you move?" he asks because he hadn't noticed. She doesn't answer and he closes his eyes and pretends she's real.
If he's going mad, which he must be, he thinks that this is the best part of it. For a little while, he's got Rin back, even while everything else in his life is falling apart.
He stirs. "Do you think there's a chance Sakura and I can figure this all out?" he asks in a voice that only she'll be able to hear.
Kakashi doesn't hear her answer but he knows when she gives one--she nods, the movement enough for him to feel it through her embrace. He sighs. That's a comfort. "I'm not very good at that sort of thing," he says, "and neither is she."
Which, he thinks, is an understatement.
A few moments later he asks another question. "Do you know what's wrong with me, Rin?"
She lets him go and he watches as she steps back a few feet. Her face is serious and determined.
"What do you know?" he asks her, unsettled by her actions and wishing that--that this was even real, because it can't be real.
It can't be.
Rin smiles, but it's a sad smile. She lifts her hands up and places them, pressed together, under her right ear, like she's sleeping. Then she looks at him, a demand in her eyes.
"I know," he says. "I do need sleep. But do you really think I can?"
What he doesn't ask but wishes he dared was 'will this make more sense in the morning'?
His anger doesn't surge at that and Kakashi breathes a sigh of relief. Surely there's time enough for him to figure out what is his problem with Sakura's friend--he doesn't dare think her name and call the rage back--once he's rested, Kakashi thinks. He's too tired to come to the proper conclusions anyway.
Rin smiles at him.
"Why aren't you talking?" he asks her curiously. "You said hello to me before."
She shrugs at him, her lips pursed like she's at a loss for how to explain it. Then, after a second, Rin just shakes her head.
Kakashi shakes his. "Madness," he murmurs, then holds his hand out to her. He remembers fuzzily that he's supposed to report anything out of the ordinary to Hokage-sama.
But that had been to do with the illness not with his own personal demons, he thinks. "Come on, Rin," he says, "let's go home and rest. You'll watch out for me, won't you?"
Her hand in his is an impossibility but when she wraps her fingers around his, he's sure he can feel them. She tugs him over to the stone and kneels down, still holding his hand. Kakashi follows.
"Hey," he says quietly, once he's on his knees. "Minato-sensei, Obito, things are pretty complicated right now. But... but don't worry about me, Rin's looking after everything. You know that she always cared more about keeping me healthy than I did..."
He trails off for a long moment before getting up. "Good bye," he says, then shakes his head. "I'm tired," he explains a bit ruefully. "Good night."
Then he turns away from the stone, Rin still a silent but comforting presence beside him. He looks down at her. "Can you keep up with me?" he asks. "I'm going to go fast."
She makes a face at him, as if to say that of course she can keep up with him and what does he take her for? Kakashi, despite everything, feels a little lighter at the laughter in her eyes.
"Alright," he says, "ready, set--go!"
He goes so fast that his body is little more than a blur as he flies out of the clearing and then up onto the roofs. There's only one more day until he's got to report to Hokage-sama and head out on a mission and he suspects that he's going to be spending most of that in sleep.
But then, he thinks, as he darts from rooftop to rooftop, there are far worse things he could be doing and these last two days have been an exercise in proving that.
He's so occupied in his thoughts that he finds himself passing by Sakura's apartment automatically and slowing. He can spot her windows from here and he watches as Sakura walks past the window in her kitchen.
Rin tugs at his hand and he looks at her. Her eyes are worried and she's frowning at him. He realizes that he's being a bit of a stalker and turns to go when Ino walks past the open window sipping from a cup and he staggers, going to his knees as the rage swamps him.
This isn't me, he thinks as he struggles to find some measure of control against the heaving, rushing fury. This isn't my anger.
Whose is it then? He knows his anger and his is cold.
This is warm.
Rin's tug on his hand becomes a lifeline as he forces himself to stumble after her, one foot in front of the other, over and over until he's breathing just a little easier and the rage as subsided back under the surface of his skin.
"What's going on?" he asks her again.
She lowers her eyes and shakes her head. Her grip on his hand tightens. Kakashi lets his breath sharply and follows as she leads the way, no longer at their breakneck pace because he's certain that if he tries that, he'll collapse for real and somehow, he suspects, she knows that.
The further they get from Sakura's apartment, the better he feels. Better, he thinks, being relative but the fact remains that the rage quiets and tucks itself away and he can focus more on the pain of the last few days--and there's enough pain to go around, really. He doesn't understand why his friends would hurt him in the name of looking out for him.
He wonders if he would understand it had he been more social as a younger man. He's getting too old for this.
As Kakashi approaches his apartment he realizes that Naruto is leaning against the door. He looks worried about something and Kakashi realizes that, perhaps, just disappearing hadn't been the best of plans.
"Didn't Sakura tell you to make sure I got back?" Kakashi asks, coming to a stop in front of Naruto.
Naruto pushes himself away from the door. "I knew where you were," he says, "I kept an eye out on you."
Kakashi doesn't need to ask how: Naruto is still as casual and careless with his chakra as he's always been and he can get away with strewing kage bunshin around the village and maintaining them without ever breaking a sweat.
"So you just left me there?"
Blue eyes narrow at him and he's glad that they're so obviously Naruto's because he can feel the rage bubble for a second, reminded of someone else's eyes. "Who am I to drag someone away from there?" Naruto asks. "You were busy."
Kakashi wonders what Naruto saw him doing there. He doesn't ask. Naruto's right that there's a time to drag a companion back to their bed but while they're at the stone isn't one of them, unless they collapse.
He's close to that point but he can and does appreciate the way Naruto has given him as much privacy as he could. "Thank you," he says, and brushes by him, realizing that the doors aren't locked for the first time.
With a soft noise of dismay, he enters his apartment and is unsurprised when Naruto follows him. "Planning to stay the night?" he drawls and heads to the fridge. He takes out a water bottle. He needs to eat but Kakashi knows if he tries to eat anything while so wrung out that he'll just make himself ill. He needs sleep more.
The water is cold as it trickles down his throat and, after a moment's contemplation, he tosses another bottle at Naruto.
"Yeah," Naruto says, a little bit defiantly as he catches the bottle. "You've been weird, Kakashi-sensei."
He wants to argue that. Scathingly point out that he's been dumped and has had very little rest since getting back from a mission and has eaten only once in that that time. That would make anyone act weird. Kakashi just drinks deeply from the bottle and says nothing.
Weird.
That's as good a description as any for what's been going on. He hasn't been himself, though he feels almost normal right now. It's comforting to know that he still can. Rin leans against the counter by him and smiles up at him. Kakashi knows what she wants and runs his free hand through his hair.
"Stay then," he says, though he hates having company over and he's only never minded if it's Sakura but that's an entirely different matter. "Take the couch." Which was already prepared with blankets and a pillow. "I'll be in my room."
"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto says, "do you know what's wrong? Shouldn't you go to the old lady and see if she can help you?"
It's on the tip of Kakashi's tongue to mention that he's already been before the 'old lady' and that his tests came up clean. He doesn't though, because it is true that just because they'd come up clean then doesn't mean they'd come up clean now. "I'll think about it," he says and wonders if Naruto is going to drag him off somewhere else now. "And no, I don't know what's going on."
Which is true on so many levels that if he were the crying sort, Kakashi wryly thinks that he'd be weeping into a pillow. As he's not, he just finishes off his water and tosses the empty bottle in the garbage.
"You didn't get hurt on your mission, did you?"
Kakashi shakes his head. "Just a scratch," he says, glancing down at his arm and realizes for the first time that it has already healed so seamlessly that it's like it never happened. "It's clean."
"Alright," Naruto sighs, sounding unhappy.
Kakashi doesn't blame him.
If Naruto is unhappy, that's nothing compared to how Kakashi feels and he thinks that's fair, in this world where nothing has been fair lately. "Just go to sleep," Kakashi says, tossing the words over his shoulder. "And maybe when I wake up you'll be done playing nursemaid."
"I'm not!" Naruto protests with indignation, right on cue, and it means that Kakashi is smiling slightly under the mask as he heads into his room. Rin trails him in and despite the way he really and truly does hate people staring at his face, he gets rid of the hitae-ate and his mask. He's slept in both of them before, but he's far too tired to put up with anything that keeps him from sleeping as deeply as possible.
He stretches, then leans against the door, his hands flying through a few seals before he presses his fingers against the door frame. There's the soft hum of jutsu becoming active. Kakashi turns, pleased with his work, and finds Rin frowning at him.
"Don't give me that," he says. "It won't keep him out. It will just let me know if he tries to come in."
Rin's frown eases and he considers her as he pulls back the blankets on his bed and crawls in. "Are you going to sleep?" he asks drowsily.
He doesn't see her shake her head, though he feels her hand when she rests it against his forehead, but then Kakashi is tumbling down the long fall to sleep and everything goes dark.
His breath is harsh in his ears and he pauses, taking a few seconds to reorient himself and just catch his breath. It's the air here, he knows, that makes him feel like he's out of shape. It's hot and muggy and so humid that each breath feels like he's inhaling water.
His team is arrayed behind him. He's playing point. Kakashi glances at them to make sure they're all doing as well as possible. Sweat beads down his chest, his back, the hollows of his knees and armpits, down his neck. It's disgusting and worse--they've seen no sign of their target.
They'd been hired to find a few missing-nin and eliminate them. Which, he thinks, so far has been an entirely futile endeavor. If they're here, and the village they'd checked out that morning had confirmed sightings of missing nin, then the enemy had the home-ground advantage.
They can have it, Kakashi thinks as he and his team advance like a well oiled machine. The area was swampy, in all sorts of greens and browns, and reeking heavily of rot while vegetation grows around them in riotous confusion.
There's more flowers here than he's ever seen before.
Most of them, he's pretty sure, are poisonous.
That's why all of them are carrying enough rations to last for two weeks. If they can't find the target in that time, they'll head back to Konoha to restock and then head back out--because they don't get paid if they can't find the enemy.
Kakashi swats a gnat the size of his hand away from him and breaths carefully through his mask. "Keep moving," he says, and pretends he doesn't feel like moaning the way they do. If they can't see that he's as tired as they are then they'll push themselves further and harder with less complaints. "We've got another six hours before we can break for the night."
He doesn't mention the fact that they're going to have a hassle and a half in finding a dry place to sleep. Half swamp-half rainforest, he already hates this place and they've been here for maybe four hours.
Summoning his dogs would be useless and he's loathe to inflict this place on them, even if it might give them an edge in locating their target. He thinks of what Sakura would say if she heard him now--he's whining definitely--and has to conceal a smile.
Then he leaps to the next tree, as silent as a shadow and deadlier than the flowers. His team follows after, as quiet as he is, and they continue their search.
Kakashi turns and shifts restlessly in his sleep, flinging one hand up to cover his eyes as he sweats.
Rin watches him, an expression of utmost concentration on her face.
They've been here for four days now and he dreams longingly of dry ground and dry heat and a breath of air that doesn't feel like he's drinking from a pool of dirty water.
Kakashi shakes his head and creeps forward. They've found indications of human habitation and now they're all on full alert as they make their way from tree to tree, inching around the giant trunks and stepping carefully from branch to branch as they make their way through the trees.
They don't even know how many there are.
But then, that's why this is an S-ranked mission, and they'll get paid very well for it, assuming that they live. Kakashi tells himself to stop brooding on things that are negative and ignores the tiny thought that it's just being practical. After all, S-ranked missions have the highest rate of death for a reason.
Not on my watch, he thinks firmly and then freezes as he spots a shinobi, not one of his team, through the foliage. The man is wide and tall and built like he could take down buildings with the brush of his hand.
Which, Kakashi thinks, is pretty close to the truth. He recognizes this man from the bingo book and swears inwardly. This battle isn't going to be an easy one. They don't have a poison specialist with them and despite the man's form and stance, which is close to that of a taijutsu master, Kakashi can remember the words in the book quite clearly.
This man is a poison specialist with a flair for human experimentation.
Like Orochimaru had been, Kakashi thinks, and tells himself that this man can't be as strong as Orochimaru, that he's got a better chance here and now.
Maybe that's even the truth but they never get the chance to see.
Kakashi collapses like a puppet with cut strings as all around him, his team falls one by one, and the last thing he remembers is wondering what had hit them, and then... nothing.
He's never been defeated so easily before. Failure is bitter.
Rin's eyes spark with emotion as sweat and tears work their way down her face in equal measure. She stands, still as a statue, beside Kakashi's bed and her gaze never leaves Kakashi's face.
Her face is anguished.
Kakashi's is worse.
Everything after his capture is fuzzy despite the way that he feels like he should and is supposed to and has to remember something that's desperately important... he can't.
Kakashi realizes he's dreaming, in order to be thinking like that.
The memories still linger just out of touch. He writhes on his bed, face agonized, and fingers digging into the mattress with enough force to rip the sheets.
They failed their mission, the memories insist, but what happened after that?
(He'd reported that he'd succeeded in the mission to Tsunade-sama.)
Pain, sharp as a piece of glass, that stings like someone has dropped salt in his wounds, forces this thoughts onwards and Kakashi fumbles for an answer that he can make sense of.
(How was a mission that was a failure... a success?)
He doesn't remember. He remembers them collapsing. Kakashi remembers watching as was carried past him, limp and lifeless except for their breathing, as the man built like an ox brought them one by one to his lair.
Kakashi remembers dark walls and icy metal and Kakashi remembers pain and blood and...
His body curls in on itself, resisting the need to find out more about what had happened, and in his sleep he makes a noise like a plea. He doesn't want to remember it.
(But how did they succeed?)
He can't think. He doesn't know.
He remembers something about his teammates being incompatible and their screams as they are forced to see if they can be anyway.
He remembers screaming for them, when their voices died, and then he remembers...
Joyous laughter filling the air as his body was wracked with pain and agony, and the feel of something else, something darker and crueler curling around his thoughts and then he wasn't alone and he wasn't ever going to be alone.
(But that doesn't make sense.)
Kakashi remembers stepping over the bodies of his team, he remembers the way that their eyes were unseeing and empty and peculiarly colourless when in life they'd been all sorts of colours. Blue and green and browns, nothing unusual.
But they had no colour left to them now.
He remembers the way their hair had gone as white as his and how their had limbs shifted, sliding bonelessly when he'd given into faint curiosity and nudged them. Kakashi remembers staring down at them and not understanding anything.
(How had they gotten back to Konoha?)
He remembers leaving, his team around him, and all of them silent as they made their way out of the swamp and then picking up the pace as they ran, faster and faster towards Konoha and safety.
Kakashi remembers the laughter that lingered in his ears for the first half of the trip. That and the feeling of being embraced by something he can't see.
It doesn't, hasn't, bothered him.
(Why not?)
He remembers orders given in a low voice before they leave but can't remember their content. Just that it was important and it was bad and it was something to do with everything else that he can't remember.
Rin sways on her feet, looking exhausted and past exhausted, and still her gaze never leaves Kakashi's face. Her eyes are painfully bright and her hands are clenched in front of her as she braces herself against the bed.
She can no longer stand on her own.
Kakashi tosses and turns, caught in a nightmare that had been real.
(What was truth and what was a lie?)
The journey back to Konoha passes in a flash, a blink, of an eye, and the whole way there his teammates are silent and that's unusual but he's fine with that because there's the whisper in his head that reminds him of his orders, over and over, the murmur and the rage and what he's supposed to do.
(What is he supposed to do?)
He can't remember.
Kakashi wakes with a gasp, a full ten hours after going to bed, in time to see Rin's ghost waver and fade even as he reaches out for her.
Memories scatter like shattered glass at the sudden sense of loss he feels as he stares at the place where she'd stood.
He's alone.
Kakashi shivers as the rage murmurs.
He can't remember his dreams.
"Lost the connection," a girl says, sounding exhausted. "We're going to have to move this up. You weren't kidding about the progression."
"I told you, didn't I?" He leans against the girl's bed and crosses his arms.
Both of them stare at the monitor that shows Hatake sitting in bed looking bereft.
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