| [Nov. 19th, 2011|06:26 am] |
The sun was autumn-low but bright outside, casting stretches of dark shadow between Konoha’s tall buildings. The white stone gleamed. Kakashi stepped into the first alley-way he found, leaned himself against the wall, and breathed out rage. Nothing the Hokage had said was wrong. Konoha couldn’t afford a war, and the Sandaime couldn’t lead them into one for the sake of one man. Or even a hundred.
One-hundred and two.
With Ryouma alive, his list was down one life. What was the Sandaime’s list like?
Kakashi thumped his head backwards against stone. The Sandaime probably didn’t know the number, probably didn’t want to know. Most sane ninja didn’t keep count of their dead. The Sandaime just stayed alive while men and women and children died for him. While ANBU agents fought secret wars and rotted in secret graves, if they even had graves at all. While the Yondaime had died, sacrificing his life and his child for his village, asking no one else to do the same.
This was how missing-nin began.
He pressed a hand over his eyes, feeling the sting of Obito’s sharingan under steel and cloth, and tried to regain perspective. Tried not to think of the scars he’d taken for Konoha for sixteen years—
Tried not to think of growing up alone without a father who had died for honour, while Kakashi had none.
“Enough,” he said softly.
The sun was still warm when he walked back out into the street, and headed for ANBU’s HQ. The Black Ops building wasn’t white; it had been built in red brick, standing squat and ugly against the rest of the village, only half a street away from the hospital.
His home for six years, and now he had to sign in at the desk.
“Hatake-san,” said the redheaded chuunin, startled. “You’re—um—hello. What can I do for you?”
“Tousaki Ryouma should be here,” he said, attempting a normal tone of voice.
The look she gave him was wide-eyed and alarmed. “Hatake-san,” she said carefully. “Tousaki Ryouma went missing six months ago. He was declared dead last week.”
It’s a beautiful day for a nervous breakdown.
“No,” said Kakashi, equally careful. “He came home yesterday.”
The chuunin’s chakra flickered, as if she was getting ready to fend off an attack. He deducted her a mental point for being so obvious about it.
“Hatake-san, I’m really sorry but I think you must be mistaken—”
“Check,” said Kakashi.
She blinked.
“Check,” said Kakashi. “You have thirty seconds, then I’m walking in and you’ll have to arrest me.”
Another flicker of chakra, this time under the desk. He suspected she’d just activated a seal. A suspicion confirmed a moment later when Shida Akamaru translocated in front of Kakashi, holding half a sandwich.
The chuunin made a strangled sound. “Shida-san! It was—you weren’t—that was supposed to summon Arakaki-san.”
In the slanted bars of sunlight cast through the window, Torture and Interrogation’s Head of Operations looked as nightmarish as he always did. Short and thickly muscled, mostly bald, with narrow eyes and a twisted playground of shiny plastic scars stretching down the right side of his face, from hairline to collarbones, yanking his mouth into a permanent smirk. He smelled of violence and chicken salad.
“Arakaki’s busy,” he said shortly. “What do you want, girl?”
The chuunin swallowed. “Hatake-san said he’s here to see Tousaki Ryouma, but—”
“Fine,” Shida said. “First sub-basement, second door on the left.” He translocated away with a crack of smoke.
The chuunin gave Kakashi a white-faced look. “Ryouma’s alive?”
Ryouma had always liked to gossip with the desk chuunin.
Kakashi struggled to gentle his voice. “Yes,” he said, and repeated: “He came home yesterday.”
To his horror, the chuunin’s eyes welled up and spilled over. “He’s okay?”
“He wasn’t hurt,” Kakashi said. “Well, he was, but he’s healed. He’s thin, but—”
He was completely unprepared when she came right over the top of the desk and crashed into him, flinging her arms around his neck. He froze. She hugged him crushingly tight, pressing her face into his shoulder, and broke down in silent tears.
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