| [Nov. 19th, 2011|06:46 am] |
A hundred years ago, he might have had an answer for that.
“I was five, and we were at war,” Kakashi said, looking at the heavy bones of Ryouma’s hand. Calloused knuckles, scars from deflected weapons, long blunt-tipped fingers. Artist’s hands trained to kill with a touch. “I wanted to defend my home.”
Ryouma would have been about seven then, maybe, mourning his dead mother and hating his living grandfather.
Reason I ended up on the streets is 'cause my mom died when I was three years old, and my granddad drank himself to death when I was eight.
But not before the old man had broken Ryouma’s knee, and stood idly by while his own friends had tried to climb inside a seven-year-old’s skin. Ryouma hadn’t been a genin. He hadn’t even been in the academy. He’d been untrained, alone, afraid. Undefended.
At least Kakashi’s family had died for him, not just around him.
He swallowed past the ache in his throat and swung his feet off the floor, stretching out next to Ryouma. Ryouma’s grip tightened; Kakashi pulled their joined hands up, resting his masked mouth against the back of Ryouma’s scarred knuckles. Dark eyes watched him intently.
At least I got a lot of thinking done, these last six months.
And gotten good at being patient, apparently. Kakashi reached for words.
“When I was about four, I started asking my father why it was just us. He used to sit in on council meetings a lot, and he’d take me along because I’d terrorized every babysitter in the neighbourhood. There’d be all these clan heads with their partners, talking about their families. Sometimes the Sandaime would bring his son along, too — we were about the same age. I thought he was an idiot.” Kakashi’s lips twitched. “But it got me obsessed for a while. Why didn’t I have a mother? Why wasn’t our clan full of people? We had a bloodline limit. There should have been more of us.”
Ryouma’s eyebrows flicked up. He’d never seen the Hatake white chakra trick, Kakashi realized.
“It’s not much of one, we’re not exactly a pedigree. Just a piece of free-form chakra. The sense of smell comes in more handy, and that’s because my great-grandmother had a fling with an Inuzuka.”
Ryouma’s voice was a low murmur. “Brave lady. That’s the teeth, too?”
“Yeah, teething was hell. Not that I remember. My father—” he hesitated, then tried: “Dad said I used to chew on the furniture.” The shape of the word was awkward in his mouth, like a foreign language.
Laughter rumbled in Ryouma’s chest, low and delighted. “Really? Hah. So I’m just furniture, then.” There was nothing insulted-sounding in his voice, just interest when he asked: “What were you like as a kid?”
Short-lived.
But that wasn’t the answer Ryouma wanted, and it wasn’t the entire truth. There had been a life before the academy had dragged him through a six month parade of scarred teachers, hard lessons, and a wolf-pack of children, before spitting him into Minato’s nineteen-year-old care and the teeth of the war.
“Eager to please,” Kakashi said, breath breaking warm against Ryouma’s fingers. “And kind of a brat. I liked being good at things; I always wanted to learn more. That was... difficult for my father sometimes, I think. He never had enough time to teach me.” An old thought surfaced. “I think I reminded him of my mother. I don’t know, he never really talked about her.”
Ryouma sighed softly and dropped his free arm around Kakashi, curling a little closer. “Hope his reasons were better’n my granddad’s. Too painful? You said she died when you were born. What did he tell you when you asked?"
“That she was a strong ninja, and I should work to make her proud. And that I should be proud of her for doing her duty.” His smile was very faint. “And to stop asking questions and do my katas.”
Ginta’s grandmother had known more. Ginta had known more.
Grandmother said that... she was lovely. She said your mom was very good at the poetry card game, and that they beat the men playing it."
“You said you were three when your mother died,” he said. “Do you remember anything about her? |
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