| Diversionary Tactics |
[Mar. 4th, 2014|05:43 pm] |
[Takes place the early morning of May 5, Yondaime Year 5, the day after Shoot the Messenger.]
The first morning of team training started cool and misty and, Raidou was gratified to note, promptly. Kakashi was actually early, which made a first.
And… surprisingly enthused.
Raidou leaned his elbows back on the dew-dappled fence rail, and watched in faint puzzlement as Kakashi hauled Ryouma out onto the field, bullied him through a fast warm-up, and proceeded to hound him viciously around the field, sparring him repeatedly into the dirt.
Sitting on the railing, Katsuko cheered sleepily.
Raidou leaned sideways and muttered to Genma, “Hatake seem a little extra peppy to you?”
Genma didn’t quite meet his eyes. “He seems to have developed a real enthusiasm for sparring of late. Showed up at my door last night with his face out to here.” He brushed two fingers across his left cheek, indicating a pretty sizable ouch.
“I’m not sure which part of that made the least sense,” Raidou said. “He came to your door?”
“Yeah. I was as surprised as you are.” Genma propped his chin on his hands; he was standing behind the fence, leaning slightly over it. Compared to Katsuko’s half-lidded slouch, he looked almost lively. “He came to tell me— Ah, shit, this is probably still not common knowledge. He came to deliver some amazingly good news he had access to because of his relationship with the Hokage.”
That—could be any number of things, but going by the faint curve of Genma’s mouth behind the silver senbon, Raidou had a pretty good guess.
He flicked two ANBU-signs. Teammate followed by home safe?, ending in a curl-fingered question.
Genma’s smile spread, actually showing a flash of white teeth, and his fingers tapped against his arm: Looks safe. That wasn’t quite as definite as all clear, but hopeful. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I was shocked as hell Kakashi actually came to tell me. He wasn’t under orders or anything. It was a spontaneous act.”
( Raidou didn’t even know what to do with that. ) |
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| Shoot the Messenger |
[Jan. 4th, 2014|01:07 am] |
[Takes place the evening of May 4, Yondaime Year 5, a few hours following Breakfast of Champions.]
Kakashi slept until the late afternoon, sprawled comfortably on the couch in a moving sunbeam, until Naruto burst back fresh from school.
“Is he still here?” Naruto demanded.
Kakashi hooked a thumb towards Minato’s room.
Whooping, Naruto charged in like a tiny whirlwind and pounced, rousing his father in a cloud of bed hair and confusion. Despite familiar surroundings, Minato was still operating in a mission frame of mind; he immediately tried to go to the office. It took a combination of emotional manipulation, small boy tears, and Otter—the afternoon ANBU guard—leaving and returning with a message from Sagara that simply said ‘No’ before he could be persuaded to have dinner instead.
Since it was a special day, they ordered take out ramen (Otter taste-tested for poison, while Naruto watched in fascination) and cued up the old favorite movies that Minato rarely had time to watch anymore, since there was only so much Captain Seaweed he could tolerate before declaring mutiny. Naruto settled belly-down on the rug, feet tangled up with his father’s, and drew increasingly incomprehensible pictures with his crayon set. He presented each one to Minato, who declared them all a work of mad genius.
( It was proven fact that Minato had questionable taste (see: opinion on Captain Seaweed, frog motif, his son’s name), but Kakashi didn’t argue with him. ) |
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| Breakfast of Champions |
[Dec. 26th, 2013|10:59 pm] |
[Takes place the morning of May 4, Yondaime Year 5, about an hour after Leading the Lost Ones.]
Naruto woke up too hot. His hair was sticky, all over his head, and his new footie pajamas with the frogs on them were all twisted up around around his belly and too tight. He squirmed, trying to get comfy, and kicked something.
Something said, "Nrgh."
Naruto froze, clutching his blankie. This was his bed. There wasn't supposed to be anybody else in it. Monsters lived under the bed sometimes, but Dad always went under the bed with a kunai and when he came out the monsters were all dead. But Dad wasn't here. What if the monsters got brave, with Dad away, and tried to come up on the bed and eat him?
( A monster that fit under the bed couldn't be very big. ) |
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| Leading the Lost Ones |
[Dec. 26th, 2013|10:04 pm] |
[Takes place in the early morning of May 4, Yondaime Year 5, a few hours after We Started Nothing.]
Minato landed on the red-tiled seal in the corded-off corner of the hospital lobby, staggered, and dropped to one knee. Someone grabbed for his shoulder. He shrugged the hand off. "When I'm facedown, you can grab me," he said sharply. "Not before then."
"Sorry, Hokage-sama," the woman behind him muttered. Her voice was thick with exhaustion, too. Fukui Ayane, he dredged up. ANBU Ferret. Rookie on Fukeda Hajime's team, currently one-half of what was left of ANBU Team Three.
Hajime himself lay on a stretcher on the floor with his face bare of his Squirrel mask and a mess of charred meat where his left hip had been. They'd sedated him for the nightmare jerk between realities from Hikouto to Konoha, like the others too badly injured for Hikouto's medics to heal. He'd brought back eight in total—four unconscious, one walking, Team Three's rookie, one medic, and the Sandaime's son.
( And three bodies, two ANBU and the brave, foolish Intel agent who'd triggered the traitors' trap for them. ) |
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| We Started Nothing |
[Dec. 21st, 2013|11:48 pm] |
[Takes place early in the morning on May 4th, two days after Ain’t We All Just Runaways and one day after The Morning Breaks]
That night, Katsuko dreamt of the Kyuubi’s tails trailing fire in the night sky. The scent of smoke and charred flesh hung thick and cloying, almost enough to drown out the demonic intent that stained the air red. The Kyuubi’s chakra ate up all the light, burning like a small sun in the wreckage.
Hideki-sensei grabbed Katsuko’s shoulders and pushed her back, into the arms of the waiting medics. Soot streaked across his forehead where his hitai-ate should have been; she could see burns on his arms, on his jacket. Beni and Nori hovered behind Hideki-sensei, faces grim above the collars of their chuunin vests.
“Let me go with you,” Katsuko begged, reaching for him. “I can fight, I can help, just don’t leave—”
“You’re still injured,” Hideki-sensei said, catching her hand. His eyes softened. “Go with the medics, Katsuko. Stay safe.” He let her go and turned away, towards the center of Konoha where the Kyuubi raged.
( Katsuko woke up still calling for him, throat tight and eyes burning. ) |
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| Ain't We All Just Runaways |
[Oct. 19th, 2013|01:37 am] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, May 2, three days after The Way Home]
The ANBU were talking.
Naruto heard them when they thought he wasn't listening. They had soft voices and quick gestures but he had good ears, and Turtle-san had taught him some of the hand-signs once. She thought he would forget but he didn't. He didn't forget what the ANBU said now, either, when new masks slipped through the windows at shift-changes or caught up in the hallway on the way to preschool.
They talked about his dad, except they called him Yondaime-sama, and about Sagara-san, who was sometimes Hawk and sometimes Sagara-sama. Sagara-san was in Dad's office today and she'd been there yesterday and the day before, and she'd only come once to Naruto's room, on the first day, to tell him that Dad was gone for a little while and he needed to be good.
No one but Dad and Kakashi-niisan and Rin-neesan could expect Naruto to be good just because they said so, and Kakashi-niisan was gone right now, too. Rin-neesan came by for dinner once and she didn't know where they were, either. Sometimes Rin-neesan lied, though, like when she said this wouldn't hurt a bit and she made you count to three but she stuck the needle in when you were still on two. So he didn't know.
Sagara-san knew where Dad and Kakashi-niisan were, but she wouldn't tell. Turtle-san wouldn't either. Wolf-san got stiff and uncomfortable and told Naruto not to ask questions that they weren't supposed to answer. But Wolf told Turtle, when they thought Naruto was throwing a fit over the bones in his grilled mackerel, that Yondaime-sama was hunting down traitors and they needed every mask they had right now, so it was a good thing that Crescent Moon's squad was coming home.
( Crescent Moon was Kakashi-niisan's captain. ) |
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| The Way Home |
[Sep. 27th, 2013|07:52 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 29, the morning after Suffering Fools]
Nine unbroken hours of sleep wasn't enough to make Ryouma feel anything near human when he woke, but the press of warm fingers against his forehead and the slow trickle of chakra into parched coils went a little way towards helping him feel less murderous. He slit boulder-weighted eyelids open and squinted hazily at the broad palm masking most of his vision. "R'dou?"
"Rise and shine, kiddo," Raidou rasped. He sounded almost as tired as Ryouma felt. His chakra was sluggish, clogged with earth affinity that refused to settle into the low ebb of Ryouma's water and fire.
Not solely Raidou's fault. But even molding borrowed chakra until it melted into his own felt like an insurmountable task now, with the warm bed dragging him down and darkness beckoning behind the backs of his drifting eyelids. "Said I could sleep," he mumbled.
"I did," Raidou agreed. "Now I'm saying you need to wake up."
He cut the chakra flow with a flick of his fingers against Ryouma's forehead, and his hand fell away. Ryouma groaned, rubbed his face against his shoulder, and finally dragged his eyes open again to see Raidou crouching at the side of the bed and reaching for Kakashi's ANBU mask.
Kakashi's head had tipped back against the mattress, and for some reason Ryouma's fingers were laced through his wild grey hair. He stared blankly at them until the edge of Kakashi's ceramic mask nudged his thumb. Raidou was shoving Kakashi's mask back to clear his forehead, but he'd paused to give Ryouma a weighted look from behind the eyeholes of his own henged mask.
( 'He's soft,' Ryouma said, and patted Kakashi's hair to prove it. ) |
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| Suffering Fools |
[Sep. 24th, 2013|07:43 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 28, immediately following When the Reckoning Arrives]
Miles bled by in a waking dream. The litter-carrying clones' gait wasn't smooth enough to sleep, even if Ryouma'd dared. His head ached, a low fuzz of tension under the haze of morphine, and he kept hearing Genma's raw voice rasping, B-brain bleed?
The pain became something to hold on to, jostled back with each long running step, sinking away again in the space between strides. Rain spattered against his face, faded to drizzle, and then pounded down with renewed fury. Someone tried, briefly, to hold an oiled cloak over them, and then gave it up.
"Betcha I can boil the rain to steam," Genma offered.
"Don't," Raidou growled, somewhere behind them. Ryouma snickered, coughed, and curled painfully against Genma's bandaged side. There seemed to be waves of heat rolling off the lieutenant, pulsing with his heart; if Ryouma squinted he thought he could almost see the visible haze of fire chakra burning through veins. It looked like it hurt. His own chakra-charred pathways ached in sympathy.
But the heat was beginning to sink into his shiver-knotted muscles, like sunlight on frosted ground. He tucked his chin down very carefully on Genma's shoulder and tried to press a little closer.
Genma twitched as if he meant to turn his head, but nothing moved. He took a deeper breath instead. "Doing okay, Tousaki? Don't think I can turn the heat up any higher. I'm kinda over the line already."
"I'm fine!" Ryouma tried shifting back against the sloping side of the stretcher. Cold air clawed between them. "Just takin' my chance to cuddle up to the hottest lieutenant in the corps. Sorry, you can turn it down—"
"Don't be an idiot," Genma said, but there was no bite to his voice. "Stay close. You need the heat, and so do I."
( That sounded reasonable. ) |
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| When the Reckoning Arrives |
[Sep. 20th, 2013|06:25 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 28, immediately following Teeth in the Dark]
Genma and Kakashi took up positions on the craggy wall above the auxiliary mine shaft, clinging to slippery rock in the driving rain with the barest threads of chakra. They flattened into crevices, black and gray shadows nearly invisible against the rough limestone. From their vantage point, they saw every feint and strike as Katsuko’s two dozen clones dodged and weaved amongst the roused demons, slapping smoldering chakra tags to glistening, black, armored bodies.
Tags detonated, staggering the demons. Clones slashed apart by flailing demon limbs and tails erupted in a frightening illusion of spurting blood, before they collapsed into vapor. And one by one, Ryouma’s jutsu struck home. Katsuko or her clones would disable a demon, and Ryouma would surge forward, hands glowing with putrid light to liquify it through whatever cracks the discharging tag had left in its shell.
Each time he ran in close it looked like certain death, but Katsuko and her clones were everywhere, providing enough distraction for Ryouma to get in and lay hands directly on the injured demons. Genma counted only three uses of Ryouma’s chakra-heavy version of the rot jutsu that could strike from a distance. Each one of those hits, though, was a spectacular victory, sending one of the larger soldier beasts careening to the ground with a sick slosh of decay.
The stench rising from the battlefield was overwhelming—acrid and acidic, sulfurous, bloody, and under it all, the reek of rotting flesh. Genma fought back a surge of bile in his throat, and at his side, Kakashi’s shoulders shuddered.
( Eight of the demons lay dead near the mine shaft entrance. ) |
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| Teeth in the Dark |
[Sep. 18th, 2013|10:14 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 28, the day after Into the Breach]
Katsuko slept long and deep, and didn’t dream. Her bunshin woke her before dawn, silent sentries in gleaming armor. They faded back to guard the perimeter as Katsuko struggled out of her bedroll.
Genma was already awake and in uniform, poring over the maps by the light of a glowstick. His mask hung at his belt. He glanced at her and nodded, freshly shaven and much more alert than anyone had any right to be at four in the morning. Katsuko gave him a dead-eyed look and a tired attempt at a salute.
Raidou was up and moving, running through kata because both he and the lieutenant were morning people. It was like a disease.
Ryouma, reassuringly, was still asleep, sprawled across his blankets like an ad for skintight tanktops. Katsuko magnanimously decided to leave him be. People who didn’t willingly wake up before the roosters had to stick together.
Kakashi was a blanket-covered lump on the ground. As she watched, he shifted to pull the covers up higher over his head. Conscious, and apparently hating every moment of it. Maybe he and Ryouma could form a club with her, if he and Ryouma didn’t strangle each other first.
“I hate everything,” Katsuko croaked, by way of greeting.
“Exercise will help!” said Raidou, because his soul was one of the things he’d signed away before joining ANBU.
“I’ll help your face,” Katsuko muttered. “Into a tree.”
The extremely offensive level of cheer in Raidou’s voice increased. “That’d count. Five minutes, then I’m turfing everyone out of bed.”
“There’s no light,” Kakashi said. He sounded like Katsuko felt: mutinous, with a side of promised future stabbing.
Genma, because his sense of timing was precise and malicious, chose that moment to enter the conversation. "Since when do ninja need light in order to function? The first kanji in ANBU is ‘darkness’."
Katsuko shuffled over to Ryouma’s sleeping form and crouched down by his head. “Get up,” she said, and poked him in the shoulder. ( 'I need you to help me hide the lieutenant's body.' ) |
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| Into the Breach |
[Sep. 13th, 2013|10:38 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 27, about a week after Take the Mask and four days after After the Tornado]
There were perks to dying early on ANBU Team Six.
Genma brought juice boxes to team training session, for one thing. Not that he called them that—he had a long spiel about electrolyte balancing and blood sugar and rehydration—but the fact of the matter was that they came in flavors like Lychee and Coconut, and once Raidou broke your neck in taijutsu practice you could sit under the trees with a drink and a rat bar and call out less-than-helpful commentary while the next victim sweated and strained on the training field. It was slight recompense for the bruises.
Ryouma was pretty sure he'd be feeling these bruises for days. Raidou hadn't exactly gone easy on him during the past week of team practice—Ryouma'd run countless laps, performed sixty-nine sit-ups in a minute, done one-handed push-ups and chin-ups, sparred with his right arm tied behind his back—but the captain's eyes had lit with an unholy delight when he saw Ryouma on the training fields for sparring that morning without bandages on his hand. Katsuko had practically chortled. "One-on-one, or free for all?" she'd asked.
"One-on-one, definitely," Raidou said. They were in workout gear today, worn-out jounin blues and faded tee-shirts, and no painted mask obscured his evil grin. "Step up, Tousaki. Let's test that healing."
( He put Ryouma into the dirt two out of three times, but he had to work for it. ) |
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| After the Tornado |
[Sep. 7th, 2013|12:33 am] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 23, four days after Take the Mask, One Minute More, and Take a Number]
Minato was late for the briefing that morning, though it wasn't strictly his fault. He shouldn't have let Sagara schedule it at 0730, but with a conference with the ambassador from Rain Country set for 0900 and a shinobi's funeral at 1400 there wasn't much room anywhere else in the day. Unfortunately, Naruto demanded breakfast precisely at 0700, and a small child's schedule was even less malleable than an ambassador's. Naruto threw louder tantrums, too, when his favorite over-sugared cereal ran out.
Saya-san, the housekeeper, was mortified. Minato was impatient. Naruto was inconsolable, until a turtle-masked ANBU slipped through the kitchen window and set a bulging cloth shopping bag on the table. "It's 0732, Hokage-sama," she murmured.
( Minato bit his tongue on one of the words he was trying very hard not to use around Naruto. ) |
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| Take a Number |
[Sep. 6th, 2013|10:59 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 19th, immediately following Take the Mask.]
Kakashi hadn’t seen Rin since the night before the first Trial, when she’d wished him luck, told him to make friends—“Just try.”—and kissed him on the cheek, which she only did when she was worried.
He’d missed her at the hospital after the second Trial, or she’d missed him. She’d been in surgery, he’d found out later, patching up someone’s near-fatal disaster. She’d tried to visit him at home, but he’d been asleep, and she’d been exhausted, which was sort of how it always went lately.
She’d left him a folded origami crane on the counter, resting on top of a new set of shining kunai, a fresh pair of combat gloves, and a medical kit. When he’d unfolded the crane, he’d found a message: YOUR SHELVES ARE EMPTY AGAIN, GO SHOPPING, HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE.
Which was—sweet?
( It was Rin, anyway. ) |
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| Take the Mask |
[Jul. 24th, 2013|10:14 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 19th, the day after Dangerous Game and Heaven's Got a Plan For You.]
The night before oath-day, Kakashi didn’t sleep.
He hadn’t had mission-related butterflies for years, and he didn’t now. These were tigers chewing on his spine. Excitement with teeth. And tense, over-thought—
Not fear, exactly.
He wasn’t afraid.
Maybe, for once in his life, he was actually ready for something.
He left the skeleton-crew boxes of his packed apartment when the moon was still setting, and went to the Hokage’s Monument, picking out a seat on stone spikes of the Sandaime’s hair. When dawn came, he had a perfect view.
Tuesday was fire-day, the namesake day of Fire Country, and someone had given nature the message. The sun rose in a blaze of orange and gold, draping Konoha in molten light. The river glittered. The forest swayed in a warm eastern breeze. Even the heavy crags of the carved Hokage faces looked less severe.
( And Kakashi was late. ) |
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| Dangerous Game |
[Jul. 6th, 2013|11:39 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 18, the day after Run, Rabbit, Run and Take Me Back to the Start.]
Ryouma woke in the dark hours after midnight to a blue and white mask bending over him and a hand on his throat.
"I moved the kunai under your pillow," a low alto voice said, very quietly.
His good hand was under his pillow already, long fingers flattening. No cold brush of steel, just a tiny slit in the bottom sheet where the blade must have snagged as she'd drawn it out. He drew a slow breath.
"You didn't trigger my wards," he said.
"I had a key." The hand left his throat. She straightened, slim and straight in ANBU black and bone. The mask caught the yellow spill of light from the streetlamp below the window; better lit, its fragmented blue accents still didn't resolve into any recognizable animal. Maybe the ANBU quartermaster wasn't much of a naturalist.
( She said, 'Tousaki Ryouma, the Hokage requires your presence.' ) |
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| Take Me Back to the Start |
[Jun. 29th, 2013|02:46 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 17th, in the early morning after Run, Rabbit, Run.]
A hospital was a good place to reflect on your shortcomings.
Of course, with a little practice, anywhere could serve as a place to yank your flaws out, sharpen up the edges, and stab yourself with them—repeatedly, for preference, until you’d finished bleeding incompetence over the floor and could actually stand your own company again.
Not that Kakashi had that kind of problem.
Or difficulty looking at himself in the private bathroom’s tiny, depressing mirror.
He washed his hands, careful not to wet the edges of the new white bandage wrapped around his wrist, and shoved his hair back from his forehead. It fell forward one spike at a time until it looked exactly the same. He gave up on it.
( Minato-sensei was waiting for him back in the hospital room, backlit by milky dawn light. ) |
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| Run, Rabbit, Run |
[Jun. 9th, 2013|08:59 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 16, the morning after Field of Daggers.]
Kakashi visited the Heroes’ Stone on the morning of the second trial.
It had stopped raining; the air was cold and clean, and Obito had zero useful advice to offer. Kakashi left a single flower at the foot of the stone, mostly to annoy him.
Dawn was still a distant possibility when he arrived at the hidden training field behind the Hokage’s monument. The commander wasn’t there yet. Kakashi slipped in behind the loose knot of sleepy-eyed candidates. Today, most of them had thought to bundle up in oiled rain-cloaks over their uniforms. All of them had visible weapons — slung swords, kunai, shuriken. One woman had a giant folded fan strapped to her back.
( It took Ryouma less than four seconds to find him. ) |
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| Choose Your Blade |
[Jun. 9th, 2013|07:17 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 15]
The first day of the ANBU trials started before dawn.
Fifty kilometers, run in an hour. Most of them came in under that, of course—they were jounin—but there was no rest or water before the slim, iron-grey ANBU commander barked an order and masked veterans dropped out of the trees for bare-handed sparring, no chakra allowed. Jutsu came later, as a grey drizzle veiled the risen sun. Timed kawarimi, distance translocation, area-effect genjutsu, shadow clones. Another round of sparring, with blades this time. And then a panting moment of blessed rest, dropping down onto the sparse patches of dry ground under the trees while one candidate after another demonstrated their special jutsu on the muddy field under the ANBU commander's masked and merciless gaze.
Tousaki Ryouma had a cut on one shoulder and mud in his hair. He didn't think the cut was bad; it hurt to lift his arm, but everything still worked, which was all he really needed. Probably. There might be weightlifting next.
He sealed his palm to the tear in his sleeve and rolled his shoulder, testingly. Pain stabbed red and white, but the warm seep into muddy fabric didn't break into a surge. The cut felt long but shallow; a short sword glancing off the padded shoulder of his flak vest as he turned and ducked, slicing into the meat of his upper arm instead of his neck.
He'd only had a single kunai, like all the other candidates. He hadn't actually drawn blood, but that frog-masked veteran would be limping for a week.
( Probably, Ryouma decided, he could allow himself to be smug. ) |
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| Don't Fear The Dark |
[Jun. 1st, 2013|05:19 pm] |
[Takes place Sandaime Year 20, ten years before the Kyuubi, when Kakashi is four.]
The mask was waiting for him in the hallway.
Kakashi stuck his head cautiously around the kitchen door, saw the the red-lacquered eyeholes gleaming in the shadows, and ducked back into the kitchen. His mother found him rooting through the cutlery drawer, balanced on a tall stool to reach the handles. Her long, dark hair was knotted in a complicated twist, with calligraphy brushes rammed through it. A few drops of ink splattered one cheekbone.
“Looking for something?” she asked.
He’d read Shizuoka Noburu’s Lessons From Behind Enemy Lines last week. The chief principle had been deny everything. “No,” he said.
( Her eyebrows lifted. ) |
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| No Old Heroes |
[May. 30th, 2013|09:41 pm] |
The guttering embers of Obito's funeral pyre die around dawn. Rin helps Minato-sensei gather the ashes and break camp, a hollow feeling in her chest where grief should be. Kannabi Bridge lies in ruins miles behind them; Kakashi hasn't said a word since Minato-sensei rescued them yesterday. She finds Kakashi out in the meadow, staring up at the sky. The bandage wrapped around his head makes her eyes burn.
“Kakashi,” she says, and touches his shoulder. He doesn’t shrug her off. “Kakashi, we have to go.”
After a moment, he turns to look at her and nods. She’s known him long enough to read the tightly controlled fragility in the set of his spine, the shape of his mouth underneath the ever-present mask. He looks one step away from falling apart.
“Come on,” she says gently, and takes his hand.
( He lets her lead him out of the meadow. ) |
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