Cruel (Slight K&I Cannon)

Author: semmett

You stand looking at the door, as the seconds slowly pass you by the thought of just leaving enters your mind. You turn to walk away when the door opens and he stands there, his one eye showing his confusion. He knew you were there, he always does know where you are. He’d have been dead long ago if he didn’t know when another ninja was close by. Yet your never normally this bold, he’s always been the one to come to you, you’ve never come to him. He opens the door further, signalling that you can enter but you don’t move. Neither say anything and after a moment he goes back indoors, but leaving the boor open so that you can follow him. For a second you don’t move until you will your legs to move and follow after him.

You act on autopilot, you may only be a chuunin but some things become standard for ninja. You make a sweep of the small cramped place the legendary jounin lives in; kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom. The walls are adorned with pictures of scantily clothed woman and posters of the wretched books he likes to read, floors and surfaces are littered with weapons and scrolls, food incrusted plates sit unwashed in the sink. The place reminds you somewhat of Naruto’s small home. You find yourself making mental notes of things that can be used as a weapon and escape routes, quickly you mentally reprimand yourself. You’ve spent far to much time around the occupier of this flat.

Kakashi sits in the living room on his old worn sofa, the T.V is on quietly and he is methodically cleaning his weapons. A small pile sit on one side, and on the other, different weapons lie orderly showing which have been cleaned and which haven’t.

“Rule 23: A Shinobi must always make sure that your weapons are in good condition before a mission,” He says, poking fun at you as of you wouldn’t know the rules. Of course you know them, you teach them every year to a class of unruly kids. You rack your brains to think which mission he’s going on, with all the time you put in at the mission room, you handle almost all missions at one point in time, and you’ve no memory of him receiving a mission. As if sensing your thought he answers your question, “All S class missions are given from the Hokage directly, the less people involved the safer..” he doesn’t finish off the statement, but you get the underlying message, ‘the less people involved the easier it is to deny the mission and the ninja’s existence.’ You learnt early on with him to always look underneath the underneath

He glances up with his one eye that is so focused on removing an invisible stain and motions to the heap of weapons. Understanding you place yourself opposite him, sitting on the floor you remove one Kunai, take a rag and clean along the edges. Then you pick up a special whetted stone and run it along the edge, slowly sharpening the blade. The task is repetitive and boring but still, it comforts you. Slowly the drone to the T.V disappears, even the company your in and the task you have to do. Every part of you is focused on slight grating sound metal makes as you run it along the stone to sharpen it. So focused are you that when he does speak your taken by surprise, the kunai slipping out your hands and shallowly cutting one of your fingers.

“Your not normally the instigator.” The words and their double meaning run circles in your head. You place the weapon on the side of the newly clean and sharp ones and place the cloth against your finger hoping to stop the blood flow. He puts the weapons he’s cleaning down and takes you hand. Removing the cloth he brings it closer to him, using the pretence of looking at the wound, he lefts your hand up to his face. Pulling his mask down he takes your finger and sucks the blood as if the wound were more serious. You can’t help but admire the beauty of his face and the way the scar only seems to enhance him. All the while his eyes rarely leaving your face, wanting an reason for your appearance.

“I’m not here to instergate anything.” You meant it to come you strong but its more a strained whisper. He says nothing but everything is conveyed in his eye; ‘then what did you come here for?’

Suddenly the room seems too small, the temperature rises dramatically and the two of you seem far to close. Memories of the near past bombard your brain and you want nothing to run from the place, put as much distance between the two of you. Your breath hitches and you can feel sweat slowly making a trail down your back between your shoulder blades. You withdraw your hand and cradle it close to your chest, you have to do what you came here for. You stumble as you stand up and you can sense the confusion and worry emanating from him. He remains seated but looks at you expectantly.

“I have to go.”

“Stop being a prude, it’s endearing sometimes but not now. I was going to come round later because the mission may take a while and I wanted to say goodbye.” He’s about to get up when you finally find your voice, you don’t want to but you have to.

“NO.” You say as forcefully as you can. “This…” You gesture to himself and you, “This…it stops.. we don’t need to anymore…you don’t need me anymore.. no more pretences of getting to know your new students through me…Sakura’s training under Tsunade…Narutos gone to train under that pervert…and Sasuke’s just gone. We can’t do this anymore… We can’t lie to ourselves anymore… I can’t be used like this anymore… I’m sorry.” You don’t wait to see what his facial reaction is but just turn and leave, you’d had more planned but it had all died in your throat. You don’t focus on the dead silence that’s coming from him. Just making it to the door, and then when you get home you can break down, but you have to get to the door first.

Your within three strides of it before your slammed into the wall, so hard plaster breaks and old scars re-open. His hands tighten round your upper arms, the bruising will be there for days. But you don’t focus on any of that, only the two eyes staring into your face. Black comma’s swirl continuously in a sea of red, boring into your own eyes. He’s furious and more hurt then you’ve ever seen him. In the few seconds that its taken you to get close to the door he’s removed his haite and caught up with you without you even noticing. This is the reason why he’s so well known, a true genius, one that’s needed to protect their home.

You’ve never seen him angry before, annoyed but never angry, and you start to understand why he’s so feared.

“No.” He states with such raw emotion that it breaks your heart all over again. “I won’t accept it.” The certainness in your voice means that for a fleeting moment you almost believe him, but it passes and once against both of you must face reality. You open your mouth to say it’s the truth, but then you make the fatal mistake of looking into his eyes and the pain that’s so visible destroys you, this isn’t fair. You try to ficus your eyes anywhere but his eyes; his mouth, or nose. Soon you find yourself staring dejectedly at the floor. This only seems to hurt him more, he squeezes his hands tighter, hoping to elicit a reaction out of you.

“Why?” He whispers burying his head in your neck. He’s always liked to do that, normally he did it when wanting something that always led to the bed and aches in the morning, but now all he wants is comfort. You open your mouth to repeat what you’ve already said; “Don’t lie.” He says. You grasp at mental straws trying to come up with a feasible solution but in the end you decide to tell the truth.

“They found out, and told me it had to end,” You say, emotion tightly reigned in, the fury is no longer pointed at you but at the leaders of your home and increases tenfold. He looks at you again, staring with both eyes, searching for falsehood.

“They can’t do that,” He says horrified at the implications, any self pity now gone. “They’ve no right, not after everything we’ve done, we’ve served faithfully far to many years.” The unsaid comment that he’s served faithfully to many years, doing the dirty work of the village as he’s commanded.

“I was told you almost failed your mission, they didn’t go into details just that it was an assignation and that…that he resembled me…” Kakashi tries to protest but you continue on, “They’ve known for a while… they would turn a blind eye but they say your performance can not be affected in any way, even if I’m that thing affecting you.” His grip lessens slightly out of shock, you know what he’s feeling as you felt the same when Tsunade told you what you had to do. Yet after shock wore away you can’t find it in yourself to blame her, she has to put the village first, and he’s a valuable source of defence, he’s needed. You can tell from the way she delivered such a order that it hurt her inside, she doesn’t want you to do it, more likely the politicians said it must be done. Relationships such as there are naturally frowned upon, and their isn’t even a possibility of heirs. Maybe they hope with your removal he’ll find a woman who can produce more Shinobi genius’s. But you don’t focus for very long on the reasoning for such a cruel order only that it has to be done, the repercussions will be far to serious otherwise.

“I don’t want to…” Your voice is perilously close to breaking, “But I don’t have a choice, I’m sorry but I’m a coward. This is a mission, and I’m not allowed to fail it. If I do I’m to be sent to permanent sentry duty on the borders of Rock..” You trail off, both know that to be sent there is suicide unless your jounin, the raid there are just too dangerous. You hate it, you hate being used as a item to blackmail him with. You know there are few things that he values as highly as the safety of his team-mates and yourself. You feel like a prisoner of the village, a pawn to higher players, and for the first time you hate Leaf for what its doing to you.

“We have no choice,” He says hollowly, he’s finally broken, made into the perfect Shinobi, an unfeeling weapon. This hurts you the most, you can’t let them undo all the work you’ve tried to hard to do, they can’t destroy the man your helping to re-build.

“I..” the words die on your tongue but his eyes show the slightest glimmer of hope and humanity, so you feed it the only way you know how. You kiss him. And soon he’s returning it, and it swiftly becomes more frenzied, somehow you lead each other to the bedroom. Both of you pour for desperation and other unsaid feelings. It’s only after the frenzy when he’s gingerly stroking the hair from your eyes that you face the harsh reality. From now on you can never have what you truly want, and you will forever have to pretend like there’s nothing wrong as you pass each other on the street. And the more you think of it the more it kills you, so you stop. You wait till he’s quietly sleeping before you slip out of bed and go to the living room and slowly start to clean the rest of his weapons, at least you can make sure that he’s safe.