#anbu kakashi: *CHIDORI TO THE FACE“ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shisuisui · 7 months

Text

The Chunin Exams and the attack on the hokage (Kakashi x Reader; past Shisui x Reader)

This scenario is kind of chronological to the anime, I just added some details. Main pairing Kakashi x fem. reader (Sarutobi reader), past Shisui x reader

wc: 5k

tw: character death, blood, etc. angsty with a bit of fluff and action

Age 21

It was time for the Chunin Exams. After watching the Uzumaki and Hyuga boys fight Y/n intently paid attention to Shikamaru´s fight. After all, he is her brother´s student. But from what Asuma had told her she knew that he would be the winner. So, it´s not surprising that she and everyone else were shocked when he gave up. That boy is something. Now it was time for Sasuke´s and Gaara´s match. The latter is Baki´s student with whom she had quite a few bad experiences before the peace treaty. She watched Sasuke concentrate the chakra to his hand and…. the Chidori. Kakashi had taught his student his technique. She still got goosebumps when hearing the chirping sound of this jutsu… and in this moment Sasuke reminded her so much of young Kakashi.

Suddenly she saw white feathers fall in front of her eyes – a genjustu. Hastily releasing herself from it she made eye contact with Gai and Kakashi who stood beside her, all of their eyes immediately going to the Hokage… who was held captive by the kazekage. Y/n watched her fellow Jonin Raido get hit by multiple kunai, and a barrier of ninjutsu formed around the two of them. So the Suna betrayed Konoha. “Gai, Kakashi you two take care of them. I need to find my father.” Both nodded and took over the sounds nin that were in their way while she went to rescue her father. Coming to a halt in front of the barrier she stood beside the Anbu who also couldn´t go in. Tensely she watches the kunai being held at her father´s throat. The both of them make eye contact. He might be an incredibly strong ninja, but he´s also way out of his prime and his health had been declining with age. The kazekage took the kunai away and reached for his face, tearing it down and revealing … Orochimaru. How did he get in? If he´s after Sasuke why is he holding the Hokage hostage? He held the kunai and pushed it into his palm. He let go of her father and turned his back to him. They seemed to be talking about something but there was no way to hear through the barrier. If there only was a way to break through it. She used her ability to visualize chakra and tried to sense an opening, just a small loophole would be enough for her to break through. The time was ticking because if her father and Orochimaru engaged in a fight, she couldn´t confidently say that her father would make it out alive. “This barrier can´t be broken unless it´s from the inside. If Lord Hokage would take out one of those four sound ninjas we could help.” The words of the Anbu next to her only added to her desperation. The whole situation seems so hopeless. She observed the barrier more closely. There has to be a way. The points closest to the enemy nin have a huge amount of chakra, and so do the edges surrounding the barrier that leaves…. The middle. Right in the middle the barrier seems to be slightly weaker. But if she would get closer it would burn her alive. She needs to find a way to break through that weak point. Especially now, that the fight between the Hokage and his former student, one of the legendary Sannin started, and both charged at each other. Her father used a mud substitution to escape Orochimaru´s attack but how long can he substitute himself? Both continued their attacks at each other, each jutsu grander than the one before. ��He´s combined earth and fire. Excellent Lord Hokage!” Yes excellent, but how long can he keep this up? She watched her father throw off the Hokage robe, revealing his ninja armor. Did he expect this? Why hadn´t he told her? Yes, she was aware of the threat that Orochimaru was but if he was so sure to fight why didn´t he add her to his guard? She could´ve been in there with him and fought alongside him. The fighting continued when he suddenly looked over at her and then looked at the middle of the barrier. The weaker part. His hand glided to his pocket, and he took out a small piece of paper with a seal on it. The transportation seal she had once given him.

Ten years earlier: Age 11: Y/n went to the Hokage tower. She had experimented the whole day and Shisui had even helped her to successfully make the transportation seal. With this seal, she can immediately reach whoever possesses the seal. That person only has to infuse it with a little bit of chakra and it will immediately resonate with her and basically pull her in. She hoped her father would like it. He should be in the tower doing important stuff. Timidly knocking on the door to his office she stared at her feet. Will he like it? Will he be proud? What if he thinks it´s stupid? Asking her to come in she opened the door. “Hello, father.” “Y/n, what brings you here? I thought you had already done your mission for this week.” “I´m not here for a mission. I-I-I made something for you and I hope you like it.” She gave him the piece of paper. Lord Third looked at it skeptically. His eyes widened when he realized what he held in his hands. “How did you do it? Making a seal like this is quite difficult, especially for someone your age.” “I studied a lot. It´s for you. When you´re in trouble one day just infuse it with a bit of chakra and I will be there to help you. No matter what happens.” He showed a small smile and put the paper away in a drawer of his table. “Thank you Y/n, but now go, I have work to do.” To say she was disappointed would be an understatement. He didn´t take her seriously. He probably never will….

She watched as he held the piece of paper between two fingers and watched the blue chakra infuse the paper. Her body vibrated. She felt like a thousand ants were crawling under her skin. The seal called for her. She concentrated on the weak part of the barrier while simultaneously preparing her body for the jump. This is her only chance. Her only chance to save her father. With one last look into his eyes, she focused on the paper and jumped through the barrier, landing right by his side.

Glaring at Orochimaru she took on a fighting stance. Ready to protect her father with her life. “You kept the seal.” “I have always carried it with me for the past ten years.”

Orochimaru was smirking towards them. “I have to admit I did not expect this turn of events. But it won´t change much about the outcome Sarutobi Sensei. The only difference will be that both of you will die.”

Two wooden caskets descended from the ground and inside were… The first and the second Hokage. Hashirama and Tobirama Senju. What has Orochimaru done? She glanced at her father; he was just as exasperated. “Now, what will you do Sarutobi Sensei?”

Lord First and Lord Second stepped out. “Long time no see… Saru.” “Oh, it´s you. You´ve gotten old, Sarutobi.” There´s no way they were going to win a fight against both of them and Orochimaru. “Father, what should we do?” “I never thought I would meet the great brothers in this manner… It´s regretful. Please prepare yourselves. Lord First Hokage. At his word, the first Hokage looked at him and glanced at Y/n. “Father?” Hashirama Senju´s face contorted in a frown. Already sensing what´s going to occur between him and his brother and their former student and his daughter. Lord Second Hokage.” Tobirama glanced at his back “Edo Tensei? This youth summoned us with the forbidden jutsu.” Orochimaru controlled both Hokages and Y/n and her father had to fight them.

“Please prepare yourselves, Sarutobi Sensei, young Sarutobi.” With these words Orochimaru completed the bodies, making them look alive, and controlling them fully. “They look like how they used to look more than ever.” Y/n turned to her father who pressed his fingers against his forehead. His voice sounded shaky. She could not imagine what it must feel like to fight against the ones who taught you and who you looked up to. Orochimaru is a sick bastard.

The bodies started walking towards them… and then attacked with an incredible speed. Her father fought against Lord first while Y/n took on Lord second. Her father used his fire jutsu, only for it to be countered by Lord Second´s water style. Just the Tobirama signed his Water Shock Wave. Y/n activated her blades which are like knives but the chakra extends them to a huge scale. Right when the water was about to hit them she sliced through the jutsu, spreading the water to flow around them. There was so much water. Just the Hashirama started his attack and no matter how many fire shots her father was firing they did nothing against the first hokage. While focused on Tobirama Y/n had to watch how her father was beaten with Taijutsu by Hashirama and fell into the water. Slowly getting up. While looking out for her father she neglected Tobirama who charged at her with his sword. Blocking it with her blades she was all too aware of how hopeless the situation looked, and how their chances to make it out alive sank by the minute. Her thoughts were interrupted by tree trunks started sprouting through the roof. “Deep forest emersion” Her surroundings turned into moving trees, unstable and out to catch her. Her arms were caught by two branches twisting and chaining her to the ground. They needed reinforcements immediately. She could hardly move and neither could her father. A look at her was enough. She knew what to do. Trying her hardest to put her hand on a surface she summoned the only hope for this fight. Alongside her father's Monkey King Enma, her own summon Monkey Prince Enki appeared. Both are similar in looks but Enki looks more youthful than his father. “Enki, get me out of here.” The summon looked at her. “Long time no see Y/n, look at me. I´m nearly as tall as my father.” One stern look from her was enough and he worked on the branches breaking them with his enormous strength. She looked over and saw Enma already eyeing Orochimaru. “Orochimaru… I knew this would happen. You´re pathetic Sarutobi… It´s because you didn´t kill him back then and it´s too late to do it now.” “Please Enma. The Adamantine Nyoi.” She watched Enma transform into a staff and break her father free. “Come on Enki you too.” Enki nodded and transformed a staff too. The Adamantine Staff is as hard as a diamond and extremely destructive. Holding Enki in her hands she turned toward Lord Second when Orochimaru took a sword out of his mouth. The Snake Sword is one of the only things that can hurt Enma and Enki. Her father attacked Orochimaru leaving her with both Hokages. While the sword and the staff clashed, she focused on the reanimated bodies in front of her. Defending Tobirama´s sword attack with Enki. Enki managed to block the attack and send Tobirama flying towards the barrier. His back hit it and caught fire. But he seemed unfazed by it. So they also don´t feel any pain. Well makes sense since they´re dead. Turning to Hashirama she saw him turning towards her father and Orochimaru but before he could start running, she already charged at him, Enki firmly in her hands.

Her father was losing the fight against Orochimaru. She watched him getting punched by Orochimaru and staying down. “FATHER!” “Are you okay, Sensei?” Y/n attacked Orochimaru with her staff. Orochimaru summoned a snake which curled around Y/n body twisting it. She tried to reach her blades to cut through it but the snake was faster, trapping them alongside her at her body. Orochimaru stood on her father, who was still lying on the roof. She couldn´t hold back the tears that started to escape. This helplessness.

“Orochimaru…. YOU FOOL.” Her father grabbed that bastard and kicked his legs, sending Orochimaru to the ground while Enma´s hand shot out of the staff to choke him and hold him up in the air. Using substitution Orochimaru freed himself. She tried to free herself as the two Hokages started walking towards her father but the snake only twisted her tighter. A bit more and it would break both her arms and then crush her.

Orochimaru took off his face again to reveal a much younger one. “You´re a truly frightening, inhuman monster! So this is why you want Sasuke Uchiha? To take over his body and never age?” Orochimaru or whoever body he´s in smiled viciously. “Right… Exactly… Sasuke.” Orochimaru switched his face back to his old one for the final fight. The first Hokage used his wood release to release to fill the barrier even more with his trees. Only the Adamantine cage from Enma protects him. “What´s been wrong with you? This isn´t like you!” Hiruzen only let out a sigh, looking down. “I´m sorry…” Filled with new determination Hiruzen said, “I´ll bury you and correct my old mistakes, now!” Suddenly the third Hokage used the shadow clone Justu and made two clones of himself, distributing the little chakra he had left. Y/n looked confused, why would he do that in this situation? And then it dawned upon her. “D-Don´t tell me, he…?!” The order of the signs her father was signing. She knew what he was planning. A Grim Reaper will appear behind him looking like a ghost surrounded by a blue light but only those who signed a contract with this Jutsu can see it. Her father had told Y/n about it one night as they talked to father and daughter. Hiruzen looked behind him a saw the Shinigami. Just then Tobirama used his Infinite Darkness Jutsu surrounding all of them in a black abyss. Y/n was in a tricky situation. She had to get out of the snake´s hold. She had an idea. It was reckless, stupid, and done wrong might cost her life. She had her chakra blades in her hands facing her body, not the snake. But if she would activate them and send lots of chakra through them to lengthen the blade… it would also cut through the snake. She had no other choice. Now or never. Trying to keep her screams in she activated the blades and felt it go through her sides, slicing the flesh. A burning smell came to her nose and she tried her hardest to not scream too loud. Her whole body was shaking and covered in sweat but the snake fell limply down and she was free now, although wounded. Still surrounded by darkness she heard her father getting attacked. “Orochimaru! Now I will perform an ace jutsu even if you don´t know! Behold! Sealing Jutsu! Reaper Death Seal!” The Grim Reaper was mumbling some words she didn´t understand but she heard her father cough and let out a scream. Hiruzen ran around in the darkness when he suddenly. “I got you” Appear!”. The darkness around them vanished and she was able to see again. Both clones had grabbed the reanimated Hokage and held them tight. Hashirama then said “I´m sorry… Sarutobi…” Slowly the souls of both reanimated bodies were sucked out leaving them as white shells. “Please forgive me Lord Forst Hokage, Lord Second Hokage.” “SEAL” He sealed the bodies in his own. Now it was just Orochimaru. Could they win? Was this their chance? But her father had lost so much chakra and she wasn´t in a better situation. Getting up she went to stand beside her father. The blood from her wounds dripped down her body and bloodied her clothes. But she could care less about it. The bodies of the Hokages disappeared and left two dead Oto Nin. He did this to his own subordinates. She gasped when she saw them. “Toying with even the lives of your own subordinates…! You are truly a sick bastard Orochimaru.” How was this person once a Konoha Ninja? The student of her father? Her father’s clones disappeared, and he called for Enma who was still in staff form. Y/n called for Enki to get ready to fight. Hiruzen looked at his daughter. How much she had to go through in this fight. Wounded. Tired. “Y/n, you stay back this is between me and my former student.” “But father I can help.” He looked at her with a sad smile. “I know you can. And you helped me enough to get to make it to this point in the fight. But now you will stay back. I´m not ordering you as Hokage, I´m asking as your father. Please stay back.” Tears started to form in her eyes. She looked at him, and then slowly nodded taking small steps back.

Her father and Orochimaru went at each other when her father managed to grab onto Orochimaru. “You´re mine.” Orochimaru looked shocked and confused. He held onto him and couldn´t see the Snake Sword that Orochimaru motioned to start. “FATHER WATCH OUT” The sword flew at a rapid pace, going through her father. Y/n cried out. Her heartbreaking scream echoed in the barrier. Hiruzen coughed out some blood. Enma held onto the sword, so it didn’t go completely through Hiruzen. A shocked Orochimaru before him. “Why didn´t you dodge it?” Her father looked at Orochimaru. “The Reaper Death Seal. In this sealing jutsu, in exchange for the effectiveness of Jutsu one´s soul is handed to the Grim Reaper.” The same jutsu that sealed the Nine-Tailed Fox twelve years ago. Orochimaru tried to sign for a different Jutsu but it seemed ineffective. Orochimaru´s soul was slowly dragged out by the Grim Reaper´s hand. The Grim Reaper lifted his sword. “Knock it off” You old dotard! I won´t let you do as you like.” Orochimaru signed with his free hand and the sword started to slowly continue piercing through her father. She saw her father struggling. The sword continued to pierce through him. Hiruzen started to doubt himself. Was he not able to take Orochimaru with him? No, he had to. For Konoha.

While Y/n watched her father and Orochimaru struggle the fights in Konoha continued. She could only hope that her fellow shinobi were fighting the enemies off well.

The Anbu was still watching, unable to do anything. “It´s taking much too long. It´s impossible for a battle between Shinobi to last this long. What the heck is happening inside?”

The whole village had turned into a battlefield, Suna and Oto nin had infiltrated the village and were fighting against Konoha ninja. Bodies were everywhere. Orochimaru looked his former sensei in the eyes. “Your side… the Leaf Shinobi… will be annihilated down to every last woman and child! I will accomplish the destruction of the Hidden Leaf Village!!!”

Outside the barrier, Kakashi and Gai alongside other Jonin were fighting the last enemies that were in the arena. Kakashi looked up to the barrier. Y/n was inside with the third Hokage. He hoped she was still alive. She had to be. He couldn´t lose her too.

Y/n heard Orochimaru´s words. She was already close to passing out, with little chakra with some blood loss. She hoped Konohamaru was safe. They were probably evacuated already. Her thoughts drifted to Kakashi as she slumped down to the ground hoping that with a little rest, she could fight again. Kakashi who was by her side these past years after losing Shisui. If she died now, she would be able to see him again. But she couldn´t leave Kakashi alone in this world, and she didn´t want to. Not after all the nights they´ve shared, after the conversations in the dark, after being comfortable enough to take off his mask in front of her. She didn´t want to give this up. But maybe she had no other choice. Watching Orochimaru and her father she realised that she might not make it out of this alive.

Y/n listened to her father peaking up at his words. “To protect the village, all the Leaf Shinobi will risk their lives fighting! Real strength doesn´t lie in the mastering of all Jutsu! I believe I taught this to you too, in the past… It´s when one protects someone important that the true strength of the Shinobi will emerge!” These words. Her father had told them to her so many times.

Coughing up blood Hiruzen said “It appears that I don’t have the strength left to yank out your entire soul. However, your ambition ends here! I will take away all your Jutsu with me!” Orochimaru was screaming when he and her father were suddenly pushed away from each other “SEAL” Orochimaru´s arms started to turn purple and fell limp to his sides. “Your ambition of crushing the Hidden Leaf… dies right here!” Her father turned towards her, gave her one last look muttering an “I´m sorry Y/n” and fell.

Numb. She felt numb. Her father he-he he is laying there on the ground. With the last strength she had left, she got up screaming in pain. She had lost another person she loved. Y/n´s screams echoed in the barrier and Orochimaru turned towards her. She was making her way towards him, tears falling from her eyes. Taking out a kunai she stalked towards Orochimaru. Towards the man who was responsible for her father´s death. At the same time, Enma was crawling towards her father. “Sarutobi…” He took the sword and thought that this was a fitting end for someone like him. Dying for his people. Protecting his people. Enma vanished.

Y/n stalked towards him. “OROCHIMARU I WILL KILL YOU!” He felt like his arms were burning, turned towards his subordinates who held up the barrier. “This is where we call off our plan. Release the barrier.” She was launching towards him when one of Orochimaru´s subordinates came in front of him and stabbed his own kunai into her. She fell back and fell. Orochimaru gave her one last look. A pity really, father and daughter dying side by side.

Y/n felt like her whole body was on fire. She was coughing up blood. She wanted to go to him, so she dragged her body up towards her father leaving a bloody trail. When she was next to him, she reached out her hand and took his in her own. Turning her head to the side she saw one last tear drop from his closed eyes. She couldn´t move anymore. Kakashi… I´m sorry…. Hiruzen and Y/n lay there, side by side in a pool of blood.

The barrier was released and all the ninjas surrounding looked at it. Gai, Kakashi, and Genma watched from the middle of the arena. “The barrier is released,” Gai said. All three scowling. It was Genma who said it. “Where is Lord Hokage?”

Kakashi looked up. “Y/n should be there too.”

Orochimaru was fleeing with his subordinates when the Anbu took their chance and followed them but were stopped by a spider net that was released from one of the enemy ninjas.

On the ground, Kabuto and Baki were retreating too. Kakashi Gai and Genma went to the roof where the barrier was only to find…. The two bodies lay there, beat up and bloodied. No, Kakashi thought, not her, she couldn´t be…. He couldn´t move. Gai and Genma checked their heartbeats. Genma shook his head when he checked the Third Hokage, but Gai perked up. “Kakashi she´s still alive.” She was alive.? She was alive! He ran towards her and scooped her up in his arms carrying her to the next medic nin he could find. He looked at her. She felt so limp in his arms. He couldn´t lose her. He didn´t want to lose her.

At the hospital, she was immediately taken care of by the doctors. She had lost so much blood. He slid down a wall in the hallway and looked at his hands. Her blood was sticking to them and starting to dry up. Kakashi didn´t know how long he was sitting there. Soon Asuma, Gai, and Kurenai came, all taking a seat next to him, waiting for any news. Kurenai held Asuma´s hand. He had just lost his father and did not know if his sister would make it. A doctor finally came out and looked at the jonin on the floor. “She made it.” He felt like crying, she was alive. “Asuma-san would you like to see her?” He nodded and got up walking towards the door, and then poked Kakashi with his feet pointing with his head towards the door of the hospital room. No words needed to be said between the two men. Asuma is not stupid. He knew of the little glances, the “accidental” touches, or how much time these two would spend together.

Both men walked through the door. There she was. Covered in bandages and hooked to a monitor. “She´s currently in a stable condition but the healing process might take a while. We´re expecting her to wake up today or tomorrow. I will leave you alone.” Asuma walked towards her. Y/n, his little sister whom he couldn´t protect. Meanwhile, Kakashi stood still by the door. He shouldn´t have let her go after her father alone. He should´ve been with her. But there were so many enemies.

That night when the hospital was silent and everyone slept soundly in their undestroyed homes or tents until they were rebuilt, Kakashi went to Y/n´s hospital room, taking a seat next to her bed. He took her hand in his and told her softly about everything that happened that day, of his students.

He summoned Pakkun, knowing that Y/n enjoyed being around him. “Yes Boss?” the gruffy voice of the pug came. He looked around at the hospital and then at Y/n. “Boss Lady?” He walked towards the face and poked her cheek with his little nose. No words needed to be said as he got comfortable and laid down next to her. Her hand still in Kakashi´s he continued talking.

It was around midnight when he felt it. A little squeeze of his hand. He looked at her and saw her eyes open slightly. Taking off his mask he gently held her head up and gave her some water. Pakkun who had woken up settled against her shoulder. Y/n looked at Kakashi her eyes filling with tears. “I couldn´t protect him.” That was all it took for her to break down. Kakashi slowly took her in his arms and settled into the hospital bed himself with her in his lap, his arms holding her tightly while she cried the whole night.

At sunrise, Asuma came to visit her. It was the day of the funeral and he wanted to see if she could come. When Y/n saw her brother the tears fell again. “I´m sor-“she couldn´t finish her sentence as he had taken her into a hug and held her tightly. He was shaking too. The siblings held onto each other and let out their tears.

It was a rainy day and Y/n and Asuma made their way towards the funeral. Everyone was wearing black. Shinobi and civilians. While walking she held onto her brother, her other hand holding a crutch to keep her up. “Was Kurenai tonight with you?” He nodded. “She refused to leave me alone. Even spend the night. I´m guessing you weren´t alone either?” He looked at his sister. Kakashi was a ninja you could count on and someone who would always have your back so he didn´t mind. She just nodded. Condolences came from everyone they met. She couldn´t remember who had talked to her.

When they arrived, they took their place in the first row, as the Hokage´s children. Konohamaru was between her and Asuma while Kurenai took a place by Asuma´s side. Kakashi simply stood next to her and held her up with an arm around her face. She couldn´t look up. She couldn´t face the picture at the front. Konohamaru was now crying and clinging to her, arms holding her clothes tightly. She hugged him as well as she could. Ignoring the pain from her wounds she let him cling to her and was grateful to Kakashi for holding her up.

It started raining. “Rain,” Kurenai said. Asuma gave the woman by his side a small look “The sky has started to weep as well…”

Her father's former teammates and village elders Homura and Koharu lead the memorial service. She could barely listen. After everyone left a white flower at the table she gave Konohamaru into the care of her brother. Kakashi was already gone. She knew where she would find him. At the memorial stone.

How was she supposed to go there? She looked over at Gai who had already guessed what she was about to do. He carried her towards the direction of the memorial stone and left her there. The last bit she could walk herself as well as she could with an umbrella.

He already felt her. Sensed her chakra. She went to his side and brought her arm around him which was difficult with an umbrella at hand. He leaned into her touch, took the umbrella from her hands to hold over them, and pulled her to his side hugging her and supporting her at the same time. She turned to him and put her head on his chest. He reacted while supporting his chin on her head and holding her tighter.

Both were reminiscing the memories of their loved ones who they´ve lost while being in the arms of each other.

#kakashi x reader #kakashi hatake #reader insert #sarutobi reader #shisui uchiha #shisui x reader #the life of y/n sarutobi #naruto fic #asuma sarutobi #hiruzen sarutobi #character death #kakashi fic #kakashi imagine

36 notes · View notes

nardo-headcanons · 8 months

Text

Here's the prologue of my crack fic "My roommate can't possibly be Sasuke Uchiha!"

a/n: I wrote this for funsies lmao btw I do not have an ao3 account, lmk if i should post it there too. sorry for weird pacing. also in this household we love Sasuke. if you don't like that, this fic might not be something for you.

Prologue

They looked into each other's eyes. It had been three years since they had last seen each other. Naruto felt a pounding in his head, it was as if time stood still. Standing before him was his lost team partner, right next to the village's enemy, Orochimaru. Sakura too was shocked at the sight. He had changed so much. He had grown, his gaze more apathetic than ever. Dark strands fell into his face and stood out clearly against his pale skin. Kakashi felt an uncomfortable tension in the air, as if it was electrically charged. He saw his former student looking down at them. He embodied his failure as sensei and all the pain a shinobi had to endure wordlessly.

A lukewarm breeze brushed through her hair. "Sasuke...", Naruto muttered. "Hey, dumbass," he replied. Quickly, Naruto regained his composure. "Sasuke, you idiot! Don't you see? We all came here to get you! Come back to the village with us! We'll beat up Orochimaru!" The latter sighed. "You never understood me then and you still don't. As before, you are a naive fool." Sakura looked sadly at the ground. Naruto clenched his hand into a fist. "What are you talking about! You're my friend! I'm not leaving you with a guy like that!" These words elicited a cynical smirk from Sasuke. Quick as a flash, he jumped down to Naruto and landed softly like a feather in front of him. "All this time you've been chasing after me, you should have been more focused on your training. Didn't you want to be the Hokage?" he sneered. "I'd be the most miserable Hokage in shinobi history if I didn't manage to save a friend." As Naruto spoke, Sasuke reached for his sword. "If you didn't want a friend outside the village, you should have killed me." Kakashi acted immediately, grabbing Sasuke's wrist and lunging a counter-attack, which Sasuke expertly blocked. With Chidori he scattered the team and made Sakura hit a sharp rock, which made her sink to the ground unconscious. Sasuke readied his katana for the final blow.

Kakashi realised there was no other way to intervene and formed the finger signs for his new, long practised jutsu. With this, he could bring Sasuke back to Konoha without the need for further blood. His sharingan began to glow and ache. The pressure in his eye kept building until he hit his former student with his ability. Sasuke felt himself being sucked into a small, dark spot from which not even light could escape. "What, what is this eye power?!" the latter exclaimed. "I'm calling it, Kamui", Kakashi replied, "I'm sorry, Sasuke." In a few seconds, there was no trace of Sasuke. As if he had vanished into thin air.

Arriving in Konoha, Kakashi tried to free the trapped Uchiha again. Around him were several Anbu whose job it was to immobilise him immediately. He formed the finger signs and stared at the point where Sasuke should reappear.

But nothing happened. Everyone stumbled. Kakashi tried again. Again nothing.

Naruto, who had been watching, was seized with anger and panic. "Where is Sasuke?! Kakashi-sensei, what have you done to him?!"

Kakashi gulped. "I don't know."

8 notes · View notes

depressedhatakekakashi · 1 month

Note

Hi, sorry for talking about this, yesterday I talked about the S fans, well today they are defaming Kakashi a little more:

- they are calling him a hypocrite because supposedly "he really went from learning that important lesson from obito and inheriting his motto (those who abandon the mission are scum but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum) and repeating it to team 7 only to abandon sasuke right after". They keep talking about the tree scene but they don't take into account that he had a mission, for me he didn't abandon him, he even stopped to talk to Sasuke.

- they also say that Kakashi told Sasuke to "let it go" but in the scans he never says that, he only tells him to forget about revenge but not about his goal, which is to go for Itachi

- and finally they said that when Kakashi mentions "precious friends" he talks about moving on with life but that doesn't mean that he's saying it to take them into account and work as a team. For them, Kakashi says it so that Sasuke can move on with his life, but for me, Kakashi says it so that Sasuke can stay and be able to fulfill his goal with all of them, so that he doesn't have to carry that weight alone, since team 7 was going to have to face akatsuki anyway

But well..sorry...I'm not going to talk about this anymore, I just wanted to vent😣

Oh gosh that’s… they’re really reaching huh.

He put sasuke first and talked to him first before going on his mission, and had the sound four not shown up, beaton, and taunted Sasuke he may have actually stayed in the village. Kakashi’s talk broke through to him, but being Beaton easily by the sound four once again showed him his weakness and pushed him to seek power from Orochimaru. Kakashi also chose his teammates and friends over the mission when he actively turned his back to Tsunade while she was trying to give him another mission and went after his students. But i guess that doesn’t count because it proves them wrong.

This is like when they say he told Sasuke ‘you don’t need a reason to love someone’. He never actually stated that. He only stated ‘you only need a reason to hate someone’. Like ya if you nitpick (which they’re doing) you could get that understanding from the interaction, but he never actually said it. It also doesn’t include the fact Kakashi has Zero problem with Sasuke’s desire for revenge until it caused him to try and use his chidori against Naruto and almost caused them both to kill Sakura when she ran between them. Kakashi only said to ‘forget about revenge’ when it became clear Revenge was causing Sasuke to shove everyone away and treat even his friends like enemies.

Kakashi’s thing about ‘filling the hole in your heart’ is about not allowing yourself to wallow in your pain and loses because he knows how much it can destroy a person (his entire time in Anbu is a testament to that). His belief in ‘filling the hole in your heart’ is about moving forward while remembering the people you lost. About allowing yourself new bonds so you are not standing in the world alone surrounded by your suffering. He says the exact same thing to Obito during their fight.

Honestly, this is what i hate.

It’s ok to hate Kakashi because he’s ‘boring’ or he just doesn’t interest you

But to act like he was this big bad who never cared about his students when he showed time and time again that he did is so incredably dumb. If he upsets them that much that they have to make up reason’s to hate him, it’s time to take a step back and fous on the characters they actually like

For their mental health

2 notes · View notes

fanficforge · 2 years

Text

Kakashi the Bride Thief - Part 3

Rating: T

Paring: Female Reader Insert x Kakashi Hatake (Third person pov)

Warnings: Gore/Violence

Notes: Read Part One Here! :)

Part 4 has been requested read here!

That night Kakashi was plagued with a nightmare. One he hadn't had since he was in ANBU. Except... it was different this time. He was the same age as he is now, wearing jonin gear instead of ANBU. He was running towards an enemy in the forest, chidori sparking on his palm near the earth. The familiar screech of the thousand bird jutsu pierced the air until it hit its target.

She was wearing that pretty red dress... made even more red by the blood spilling out of her chest. His hand had struck straight through her heart. Her eyes were blank, staring straight through him. "K-Kakashi..."

Awake, he shot straight up in his bed, his forehead laced in sweat as he struggled to breathe yet he didn't want to take off his mask this time. He hated it when he'd breathe hard enough to wheeze a little. He felt so weak.

His hands balled into fists and his eyes closed, nose scrunched in distress.

"What's wrong with me?"

~~~

The next week he deliberately avoided her this time. It was easy for a ninja like him. Whatever the reason for the nightmare subsided after not seeing her for a few days so that's how he'd have to keep it.

Kakashi made his way to his favorite bookstore but the moment he opened the door he saw a glimpse of her behind a shelf and, like a school-boy, he hid behind a bookcase. She'd been wearing a pretty sundress.

His heart was pounding harder than it had on any stealth mission he'd ever faced. His body felt weak near her and it wasn't just her wind affinity.

"Thank you for everything!" She'd said cheerfully to the bookstore clerk then headed out without seeing Kakashi.

It felt like he was committing some kind of sin. Wanting her. Even though he wasn't. It was normal for a young man to desire companionship. It didn't feel normal to Kakashi though. It felt like... selfishness.

He'd thought he'd moved past his guilt and shame of the past, but really, it just took on a new form.

"You should talk to _____, Kakashi. She's been asking about you."

Guy? When did he get here?

When did he end up at a ramen joint?

Oh right... he walked out of the bookstore and Guy ushered him off to get lunch.

"I'm sure I'll come across her eventually." Kakashi shrugged, then flipped open his book.

Guy put a hand on the book to push it down. "Not if you keep avoiding her."

Kakashi's expression stayed the same as it always has, if a bit annoyed at Guy touching his book. He moved it back up and pretended to read. "I'm not avoiding her." He leaned against the wall.

"Riiiight." Guy shook his head. "This is the springtime of your youth!! You should be buying her flowers and singing her sonnets!"

Kakashi gave him a deadpanned look. "This isn't the first time you've tried to set me up with someone."

"True, but it's the first time that you like the girl." He pointed out with a shiny toothed grin and a thumbs up.

Kakashi rolled his eyes and left, feeling more agitated by his friend's antics than usual. As much as he internally appreciated the intent behind it, the truth was that he didn't want it right now.

That night he was hands in pockets, strolling along the street like usual when the sound of her voice caught his attention. It was coming from a restaurant.

Well... it couldn't hurt to peek right?

He casually walked by, only to see her next to Jiro again. A pang of jealousy curled his hands into fists in his pockets. He felt so immature for being envious over her betrothed, but it couldn't be helped all the same.

I want her...

She'll end up dead.

"Kakashi?"

She was right in front of him. How long had he been staring into space for?

"Hm?"

"Nightmares again?"

He blinked a few times.

How did she know?

She answered without him needing to ask. "You used to stay overnight at the hospital sometimes, remember? The next day you tended to be a little out of it when that happened."

"Oh... right."

"Do you... want to talk about it?"

"No. Thank you." He turned his head in shame.

"You know... your nightmares back then, they were a traumatic response."

"I know." He said. He wanted to leave, his body was wrought with shame, but he couldn't. Not when she was the one who soothed his nightmares back then, well... when he'd let her.

"But now... it might have to do with something else."

"Like?"

"Well... our nightmares can show us our anxieties throughout the day or potentially our greatest fears. In a way, it also reveals what we care about most."

"I see." He murmured. It was silent between them for a time before he spoke. "Do you train often, _____?"

"I do, though I doubt it's at the same level as you or Guy."

"Would you like to train with me tomorrow morning?"

She smiled. "That would be lovely."

"Lovely?" He tilted his head, arms folded. "Who said I'd go easy on you?"

Her eyes widened. "Ha ha... you're just kidding... right?"

Kakashi leaned forward, his hands behind his hips in a patronizing stance, shadows casting along the flop of his silver hair. "Nope. Is... that a problem for you?"

_____'s breath hitched. They were so close to each other now. His nose nearly touched her own. "N-Not at all."

He leaned back with a hint of a smirk. "Good. I'll see you at five then. Eastern forest." Hands back in pockets he walked off with her watching after him.

~~~

Wearing her jonin gear, a cropped green vest with a white tank top underneath and blue ninja sweats. Her headband held snug on her forehead.

"Hope I didn't keep you waiting." Kakashi said, seeming to appear out of thin air with a hand raised in greeting.

"Just a few minutes." She shrugged. "I knew you'd be late."

He raised his eyebrows slightly only to return to his natural state. "Let's start off with a simple test I give to genin." He said, then pulled out a pair of silver bells from his pocket. "Except. I do expect you to actually retrieve them. You are a jonin after all, aren't you?"

She watched as the bells jingled on the string between his fingers. "Right."

"Good." He hooked the bells onto his pants then took out a book and started reading.

She gasped. "Icha Icha?! I just bought that one!"

"Ah. Is that right?" Kakashi snickered lowly, sinister. "Well then, if you can't get the bells before lunch..." His eyes narrowed and his body leaned over her. "I will spoil the ending for you."

"Kakashi Hatake you wouldn't dare!" She exclaimed.

"Oh? Then you have nothing to worry about." His voice held that lilt of sadism underneath his masculine tone and it sent a shiver down her spine of a pleasant kind. Standing upright he continued reading.

After several clumsy attempts to retrieve the bells, _____ ended up on the floor with her arm pinned back and Kakashi sitting lightly on her lower back. "I'm disappointed. I thought you'd at least be better than my genin."

"Maybe I just wanted to see how it would feel to have you pin me."

It was the first time he heard her outright flirt with him. His heart seemed to stop and before he knew it the woman beneath him disappeared and the real _____ snatched the bells out from under him.

She looked so pleased with herself when he stood up to see his defeat.

"Couldn't win the honorable way hm?" Kakashi taunted, trying to play off how fast his heart was beating.

"Oh you're one to talk." She chuckled, then tossed him his bells back. "Although, I'll admit, I didn't think it would actually work as well as it did."

"Either way. With that kind of form you shouldn't be taking anything higher than C-Rank missions, jonin or not. You're rusty." He scolded.

"I don't always have the luxury of choosing what missions I take. And I spend most of my time working and studying medical-jutsu." She said, "Besides, I think you're underestimating my defensive capabilities. This wasn't a good test for that." She pointed out.

"Regardless. I could have killed you if I wanted and-"

"No you couldn't." Her eyes were steady. "I wouldn't let you."

Kakashi's hands balled into fists in his pockets and he looked away from her but she approached him all the same. "This was just a bit of fun, that's all. You weren't trying your very hardest and neither was I. Okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine. You seem worried." Her voice was softer now.

Kakashi still couldn't face her.

"Besides... in a few days I'll be going with Jiro to the Land of Waves to be wed. This won't be a concern of a Konoha ninja for much longer." Her voice was somber.

It was meant to comfort him... but it hadn't.

#kakashi fanfiction #kakashi x reader #kakashi hatake #kakashi x y/n #naruto fanfiction #Kakashi The Bride Thief #I run on muse and requests #thank you for requesting!

47 notes · View notes

pokemegha · 1 year

Text

@professor-of-naruto Heyooo I wrote something!! It was initially going to be just a normal prompt but my half sleepy daydreaming mind went too detailed in this, It's maybe kinda the first fic of mine? Idk it's just a highly detailed prompt of a single chapter worth of content lol maybe you'll like it!! <3

------✧✷✧------

The night when the Nine tailed fox wreaked havoc on Konoha ,Hatake Kakashi broke out of the seal meant to subdue next generation of shinobi, well aware that he's the most important one out of them all and going out is a breach of direct orders, he leapt through trees towards the location of the source of that immense chakra, it disappeared just a few moments ago but the bloody aura it left behind was easy to sense, it happened in one second as he jumped into the clearing, saw lord third hunched over someone's body, noticed the absence of Minato and Kushina's chakra ,heard a loud wail of a newborn baby and sensed a black clad man standing above the cliffs watching it all in silence,

Realisation hit him.

A fury he only ever felt twice before surged throughout his body as he leapt for the masked person above, Lightning danced on his hand as he plunged through that person with all the force he can muster, their eyes locked mid blow and his chidori died down halfway through, flashbacks and memories flooding through him for no apparent reason ,he retracted his right hand then punched his face with the left one as various Anbu arrived and sealed him in place, there was steam coming out of the wound as it started healing, putting his knee on that man's chest with full force he tugged him forward with his collar as his mask broke into pieces, there it was. A Sharingan stared back at him on a familiar face even beneath all those scars ,he knew, he knew immediately who he was ,Uchiha Obito came to his senses and pushed Kakashi back with all his might breaking the seal, They both stood defensively ,fists raised, stance rigid, minds numb yet swirling with thousands of emotions, millions of questions...

And the trance broke, A whisper of a voice came from Kakashi's throat asking the questions about what he couldn't comprehend, about something which is somehow true, an ugly truth.

"Who are you.... Why you did this!?"

The man with Obito's Sharingan and face stared back at him, hard, unrelenting, his eyelid never blinked once "you know very well aren't you... because YOU turned me into this" was all he said.

Shivers went down Kakashi's spine, he tried thinking that this man is bluffing but there's no way it's a lie, His old scent buried beneath smoke and blood, The scars exactly where they should've been if he survived ,That unmistakable Chakra that gave off warmth a lifetime ago now burning him but still all the same, this was Uchiha Obito and his heart knew it, but besides that Nothing made sense,

So many questions but his throat felt dry, Obito stepped forward ,The Anbu around him were alert but Kakashi was still as stone, "Don't worry ,Kakashi~ It wasn't a Revenge" Obito said with another step, "I'm not cold blooded enough to do that deliberately, At least your fked up justu did something right for once"

Kakashi wasn't getting what Obito was talking at all, it felt like a nightmare, worse than everything he ever saw, "Last time I saw that run through Rin's chest and now you almost did it with mine, Quite a record ,isn't it Kakashi?"

"....Shut up!.... what the hell are you even saying, how tf did you see what happened with her...." "Calm down ,it's simple ,I just ended up surviving and seeing you broke your promise in the worst way possible ,you pushed me into this Kakashi, but...your chidori... that somehow knocked some sense into my mind just now, I realised what I did finally"

The way he put it ,it's like someone was controlling Obito... everything felt jarring...It was getting harder to breath for Kakashi, It's too much, If it was a lie then it was pretty damn convincing, it still didn't make sense, Kakashi spaced out for a bit thinking as Obito called him again " I know what's going on in that supposedly genius mind of yours, have fun while treating those scrapes on your knuckles with the medkit she gave you" Kakashi's eyes widened even more as Obito smirked, "Talking won't change the truth, besides there's more important matters going on here" another step closer, Kakashi was speechless as Obito kept confirming the reality again and again ,Obito lifted both arms in front of him and Kakashi braced himself for whatever was gonna come his way

"You never got the punishment you deserved Kakashi, but I will accept mine with open hands"

Kakashi stood there as Anbu guards locked him up with chakra sealing cuffs ,Sandaime jumped on the cliff as an Anbu shoved Obito on his knees, Hiruzen's face was dour and voice clipped when he replied "I heard everything boar, take him to the highest security TI department" "Kakashi you come with me"

Kakashi heard but he didn't reply, he couldn't reply, he has lost his voice, everything was burning around him, he felt like suffocating inside but from outside he just gave a nod and followed him because there was nothing left besides that.

He was staring hard, His gaze pinpointed at the little pedestal from where the loud wails of a baby were coming, The baby which was made orphan after few minutes of being born because of him ,His heart screamed at him to scoop that bundle of chakra and disappear but his body didn't move, like his soul was stopping him, he was standing there from a few minutes by now contemplating what that feeling is, so lost in thought that he barely registered a Lightning falling on him, shocked through his core ,his eyes met a pair of grey red eyes and a mane of silver hair tinged with bluish light, as he realised what that sudden Lightning was ,the chidori died down without penetrating him fully but still pain coursed through his whole body, he couldn't even register the punch that came after, his body was rigid ,His heart fluttering weirdly like a tightly coiled wire around it has fell loose after years ,for a fleeting moment he felt free before a knee crashed on him and someone tugged him forward, there it was.

Hatake Kakashi in all his glory straddling him full of rage, but Obito saw his expression clearly when his mask broke and Kakashi's heart broke alongside it.

He pushed Kakashi away and broke the seal of those stupid Anbu's , getting in a defensive stance, although the wound has already almost healed but the tingly feeling has spread all over him, A pang of terrible realisation fell over him of what he had done,

'He is same as Kakashi now ,isn't he?' He thought bitterly, as their 'conversation' went on, Obito just wanted to make sure that Kakashi believed him because he doesn't know if he'd ever get the chance of talking with him again, but the Anger was still there ,although not as all consuming as it had felt back there in cave, but seeing Kakashi use his Chidori brought up unpleasant memories straight to the front of his mind

So he didn't hold back and said what was was needed to be said ,if his last ever words with Kakashi were him accusing him of killing Rin ,then it's okay, at least it's better than an unkeepable promise.

He didn't know what was gonna come his way ,but he would embrace it, He was still Angry at Minato Sensei for abandoning them all in a ditch but he and Kushina were the only people who ever believed in him after Rin, Kakashi killed her, He indirectly killed those two, Team Minato's last surviving members were both monsters, It was Reality now, way worse than what he was calling hell before, he has his full part in it so he will suffer in this hell to compensate for his sins accordingly.

And he will make sure Kakashi will pay too, because seeing Obito suffer is the best way to torture him and Obito will take full advantage of this fact.

Another loud wail of a newborn child echoed throughout the silent field.

-------✧✷✧--------

#kakshi hatake #obito uchiha #hatake kakashi #uchiha obito #kakaobi #kakaobi angsty #fic prompt

3 notes · View notes

akamikazae · 2 years

Text

Love me Mercilessly ♥️Kakashi x Akami♥️

Chapter 16: Contrition

Kakashi is hastily assigned to ANBU in the wake of tragedy. He accompanies Snake and Wolf on a mission to deliver classified documents to a war torn Amegakure. On the retreat home the group is ambushed by nin opposing Hanzo's rule. Kakashi is forced to relive Rin's death with every burst of lightning and hesitates. Chidori will never be the same again.

previous chapters [x}

word count: 4.6k

warnings: -violence/gore -canonical character death-PTSD/OCD

“Wipe that look off your face. Stop feeling sorry for me. Feel sorry for hesitating.” Akami winced as their medic tended to her shoulder. The cut was deep down to the bone. The jagged flesh another scar, another trophy.

Kakashi neglected his food, watching her skin stitch together from the green glow of chakra. All he could think of was Rin, how many people she’d never get to save. How many more would need to suffer because of him? He stared down at his rice trying to will her from his mind. Akami wouldn’t have gotten hurt if I had kept my promise.

Akami watched his head dip, she couldn’t see the dejected hollow look on his face as his hair had grown long enough to shield his eyes, but she could sense it.

“If that jutsu uses too much chakra, don't waste time on it. That way I won’t have to save ur ass next time.” She added as an attempt to make him feel better. She needed him to stop looking at her like he was ready to mourn her. Why’d Sensei send him to Anbu if he’s like this? He didn’t used to be like this?

“I’ll take the first watch..it’s the least I can do.” Kakashi suggested once her shoulder was bandaged and placed in a proper sling. No one objected, they were all exhausted. Kakashi only picked at his rations and offered the rest to Akami, she didn’t like handouts but she couldn’t bring herself to ever turn down food.

Akami’s shoulder ached no matter how she positioned herself. Her bed roll did nothing to soften the hard ground. When she finally accepted her fate she figured she would trade out with Kakashi. She got to her feet and looked around their campsite, only she didn’t see him. She looked up to the canopy of trees overhead, he wasn’t there either. She contemplated waking the others but then she heard his voice.

“What the fuck is wrong with him? He’s supposed to be on watch?!” She grumbled to herself as she followed the sound.

His body was curled in on itself where he kneeled by the water’s edge.

“It won’t come off…It won’t come off…” He whimpered to the water.

Akami was stupid not to have seen it sooner.

She read the report, Rin died at Kakashi’s hand–quite literally. Just like her he was forced to take the life of a friend. She knew what he saw when lightning flashed in his hand. Friend killer.

The only difference was he was forced to wear that title like a scarlet letter, Rin’s blood branding him forever. Akami wanted to say something, to let him know that she was the same, that he wasn’t alone. She didn’t see him desperately scouring his hands, she saw herself huddled in bed, vehemently refusing to accept what she had done. Trying to drown herself in the sea of guilt and confusion. But no words could take it back.

Akami kneeled beside him at the river bank. If he noticed her presence he didn’t show it.

“It won’t come off.” The words spewed from his mouth in quick succession. Like he was speaking in tongues; possessed by her ghost. A fleeting look of panic and fear consumed his face, his whole being. Hands trembling as he scrubbed his skin raw with so much fervor as if this act alone could prevent the world from splitting in two to swallow him whole.

Akami looked on with ravaged horror drawn to his destruction. As repulsed as she was, she was engulfed by an overwhelming sense of dread in the familiarity of it all.

She pulled her arm from its sling to plunge her hands into the frigid water.

Kakashi flinched at the sudden contact as she cleaned his hands, pretending as best she could to rid him of his sins. The hands of a Shinobi would never be clean.

“Rin'' he whispered, too quiet and broken to reach her ears.

Why would someone want to touch these hands?

His eyes bore into her as she pulled his hands from the water, safe within her grasp.

His heart pounded erratically, echoing against his skull. He focused on the movement of her lips, forcing himself to take a ragged breath.

“It’s gone. It’s all gone. See, look, nothing. It’s fine now.”

The tone of her voice was one he’d heard only once before, when they spoke at Obito's grave.

He hesitantly looked down at his hands, cradled inside hers and... there was no more blood. It was gone. It was really gone.

Kakashi stared back up at Akami the devotion and disbelief in his eyes stung. As though she were incapable of being kind. Even if most people thought that, it hurt coming from someone she considered a friend. She pulled away from him and stood to return to camp. Kakashi desperately reached for her hand again and refused to let go.

She looked down at him, still kneeling by the water’s edge. And for a second it was as though she were looking at herself, pleading for her friend to come back to her. Despair and regret reflected in her eyes through that sickly green tank. He must have seen it too as he gave her hand a grounding squeeze.

A soft splash disrupted the calm river, they both snapped to attention. Akami drew a kunai and Kakashi was on his feet.

It was only a pair of cranes gliding through the water.

continue reading [x]

0 notes

lemony-snickers · 3 years

Text

Chidori

Summary: Kakashi trains in the wake of loss. Word Count: 1,562 Warnings: References to Sakumo’s and Obito’s deaths; some descriptions of injury.

The one thing Kakashi has always been able to return to is the training field. After the loss of his father, he trained. Swirling with anxiety after his promotions, he trained. When he returned home from a difficult mission, he trained harder.

And now, with Obito dead and his life irrevocably changed by war, Kakashi trains until he can’t anymore.

Every morning he does not wake in a tree somewhere with his ANBU mask on or find himself surveilling a target in a foreign village, Kakashi is at the same field when the sun rises. He will stay until the sun sets if he can.

Learning to wield the sharingan is devastating. Half the time, he wakes flat on his back in the dirt, staring up at a dark sky and wondering how many hours he’s lost to unconsciousness.

It stings when he opens his eyes in the morning and gnaws at his chakra like an insatiable parasite. The headache that spreads from behind the foreign organ hardly ever relents. The only time he seems capable of freeing himself from the agony is during the few brief hours of sleep he’s able to steal after a long day of attempting to marry his chakra with the unfamiliar object in his left socket. But then, he’s plagued by nightmares and Kakashi finds he prefers the discomfort.

He sometimes wonders if the eye is rebelling, mutinying against its new host and his foreign chakra.

Each time the young jonin attempts to conjure lightning in his palm, the eye swirls madly and the pain is excruciating. Still, he perseveres, forcing the lid to remain open against every instinct. The eye should show him things he wouldn’t normally be able to see, but as he attempts to learn how to work with it, it’s almost as if the red iris is withholding information; keeping him in the dark because he does not possess the blood of the Uchiha.

Everything is blurry and he doesn’t understand what he sees half the time as he’s overloaded with information. Kakashi knows the sharingan will help him improve—to become stronger and faster and better and more capable of protecting his comrades. But first, he must learn to tame it.

He pools chakra in his hand yet again, watching as the indistinct glow slowly takes shape, but whereas he should be able to see the sparks dance and sizzle with improved clarity, all he sees is an indistinct mass undulating in his palm. The swirling ball of energy looks less like a rasengan than a blob.

Still, Kakashi turns and charges at the target anyway, a guttural shout reverberating from his chest as he attempts to pierce the wood.

It’s not until he wakes up hours later, soft rain pelting his half-covered face that he realizes he’s failed yet again. The pain in the back of his head tells him all he needs to know; that the force of his strike resulted in a blowback. He’s fifteen meters from the target, at least, making it the most powerful recoil he’s yet experienced.

When he sits up, every muscle and tendon in Kakashi’s body protests. He feels like his skeleton is one giant bruise, and the fingers of his left hand feel raw and tight, like he’s held onto a metal pot filled with boiling water for too long.

He groans as he finally rights himself, his spine curving into an awkward ‘C’ as he presses his palm to his left eye, trying to stop the world from spinning in time with the tomoe.

His chakra sputters and flickers within his body, like a candle set before an open window, and Kakashi knows if anyone could see him now, see how he’s pushed himself beyond sensible limits, they would reprimand him. He barks out a hollow laugh as he realizes there are too few people left in his life who would care enough to bother. And none of them are here now; none of them are ever here when he really needs them.

Kakashi stands on shaky legs, every nerve in his body singing in agony by the time he makes it to his feet. He sways, suddenly painfully aware of how dehydrated he is in addition to everything else. He tilts his head back, tugging his mask low enough that he can open his mouth and taste rainwater. It’s a poor substitute for a canteen, but it’s the best he can do for the moment and his tongue laps eagerly around his parched lips in search of more.

There’s a loud crack across the sky and then the training field burns bright white for a suspended moment as lightning streaks between the clouds.

Kakashi’s eyes stare upward, Obito’s sharingan memorizing each scattered piece of static as another bolt illuminates the field. He can feel the eye processing the information, detecting the possible trajectories of each spark of lightning as it bursts to life across the sky.

His brows draw together, pinching at the top of his nose as he scowls at the weather.

Kakashi knows his chakra levels are dangerously low. He knows he should pack up whatever kunai and shuriken remain buried in the wood target posts or scattered across the ground and go home.

But the thought of returning to his empty house having failed yet again to appropriately honor the sacrifices of his team sends a sharp pang of hollow loneliness through the young shinobi’s bones.

Kakashi lifts his mask back in place and turns his attentions to the scarred target across the field. There are burn marks on it from all his attempts to bend the rasengan to his will, to make it his own by charging it with his electric chakra nature.

And as the thunder continues to rumble overhead, Kakashi glares at the wooden trunk as if it has also betrayed him; left him behind as his father did, as Obito has.

There’s an acute stab of pain in his chest and Kakashi clutches at his shirt, eyes wide and panicked as he wonders if he’s pushed his body too far this time. Is he having a heart attack? Is he going to die, pathetic and useless, on this empty field?

Maybe, he decides. Maybe he is.

But if Kakashi Hatake is going to die here, then he is going to die fighting to improve.

Because if he’d been stronger, his father might still be alive. If he’d been faster, he could have saved Obito. If he’d been less stubborn and selfish and cruel, maybe he wouldn’t be so alone.

Kakashi doesn’t look at his hand this time as he gathers the chakra in his palm. He doesn’t clasp his wrist with the other hand to steady the swirling mass.

Instead of containing the chakra, forcibly taming it into a ball, he allows it to maintain its own erratic nature, sparking and jumping along the skin of his fingers. It feels wild and unyielding as it skitters and skips over his skin. He can feel the blisters forming already as he holds it too long, but Kakashi doesn’t care; the physical scars his training has produced are far easier to live with than the ones etched across his heart, anyway.

When Kakashi peers down at his hand, the sharingan shows him every minute detail, the way his chakra pours from his body and into the air, licking against it like a caged animal attempting to escape.

He doesn’t allow it, though. Instead, Kakashi launches himself at the target, sprinting forward across the wet grass so fast that his vision shrinks, tightening around the pole with the help of the sharingan to guide him.

There is no guttural scream this time, Kakashi is too exhausted for it. All he hears is the rain and the thunder and a strange, intensifying chirping sound.

When he pierces the log, Kakashi expects to leave an indent or a hole. What he is unprepared for is the way the whole thing splinters, lightning arcing through the wood like a sinister vine, wrapping itself around its insides until the wood shatters apart.

Kakashi wheels back, arms flung over his face to shield his eyes from the flying shards of wood.

When he returns home, Kakashi bandages his left hand with a burn ointment he keeps in the cupboard. He wonders if he will ever be able to recreate what he’s accomplished, so he can refine the technique; make it stronger and more efficient. The question is answered, however, when the sharingan replays the nascent jutsu for him as he closes his eyes.

Because of Obito’s gift, Kakashi remembers everything about it, and he smiles in spite of himself at the small breakthrough. Knowing the technique will not be lost to his exhaustion is a small relief; an insufficient reward for all the hours he’s logged attempting to finesse his ninjutsu with the help of the sharingan.

Kakashi knows tomorrow will be lost to sleep as his body attempts to recover from the overuse of the sharingan and the pain in his hand where his skin has split and bled.

But the day after that, Kakashi will return to the training field, as he always does, until he perfects a jutsu powerful enough to ensure none of his comrades ever dies again so long as he is there to protect them.

#kakashi week 2021 #kakashiweek2021 #kakashi hatake #kakashi fanfiction #kakashi angst #prompt chakra exhaustion #prompt jutsu creation #tw injury #lemony scribbles

49 notes · View notes

tojislvtb0t · 3 years

Text

Sorry To Wake You

Hatake Kakashi x F!Reader (fluff)

“When sleep doesn’t come easy, he can always count on her.”

She sat up and looked towards her window where he sat crouched on her small balcony, his open eye filled with exhaustion, maybe even a little boredom. Typical Kakashi. Her feet touched the cold ground lightly and she wandered to the window on the balls of her feet, making little to no sound. The window opened and he tilted his head as she moved aside.

“It’s late this time, Kakashi.” Her voice quietly cutting through the silence after a few moments.

“Got lost on the-“

“-path of life.” The two said in unison. He laughed softly. “Come in. It’s kind of chilly tonight.”

He did. Kakashi often found himself in her home on nights like these. Nights he laid awake, thinking of everything he did wrong in his life, or nights where the PTSD ate at him mind’s sleep only to startle him awake from a night terror. There was something about her that was comforting. He could say that he was infatuated with her, that he could see a future with her, but he would lose her. Like he’s lost everyone else.

“Sorry to wake you.” Kakashi said, his hand scratching behind his head, voice heavy with exhaustion. He probably hadn’t sleep very well in the past few days. “I’ve been tossing and turning all night trying to stay away, but... well, you know I suppose. I always seem to sleep a little better here.”

“It’s okay, I have trouble sleeping anyway. You don’t ever bother me when you come here.” She smiled softly at the copy ninja, touching his bare shoulder to reassure him, brushing down the Anbu mark tattooed on his skin. Kakashi felt himself blush under the mask, thanking the moon’s dim light as well. Her touch... her. “‘Kashi-kun, c’mon.” He shook his head from his thoughts, feeling her tug his wrist to follow her to bed. That nickname. It made him forget what he really was to everyone. Cold-blooded Kakashi. Friend-Killer Kakashi. Kakashi of the Sharingan. He wouldn’t have minded them if they weren’t true. Of course, that is who he is and he wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t, but she could distract him from it for a little while. “What?”

“Uh? Nothing. Just thinking.” he replied. She raised an eyebrow at her guest, but crawled into bed without pressing, leaving room for Kakashi to follow. She often wondered why it was her he came to. What made her the one that seemed to comfort him most? Kakashi was, well, to be frank, a pussy magnet, although he was a bit strange and reserved, after all, no one just read porn in public like he does. She’s not even entirely certain he’s had sex with anyone. No matter, younger women of the village didn’t even need to see his face to be attracted to the man, his attitude and politeness did it for them. She’d never seen his entire face either, so she wasn’t counting herself as super special, but she couldn’t help but get warm inside when he appeared at her window on any given night.

It didn’t used to be like this. She used to think Kakashi was cocky and arrogant, that his captain fueled ego made his head huge and he was obnoxiously good at everything. And his chidori. He lived up to the name cold-blooded Kakashi back then. The way he had programmed himself to turn off every emotion he had and be a killing machine. Nowadays, now older, those who didn’t know him would say he’s lazy, always late, and has no care or desire to do anything unless it was a mission. He rarely went out, and when he did it was at the pressure of Gai and Asuma. But she knew that it was quite the contrary. Kakashi was a wonderful sensei, albeit difficult, that pushed his students past their breaking points. He cared greatly for his missions, too. Kakashi wasn’t the distant, closet perv everyone thought him to be. She knew the older ninja better than that.

“You don’t have to apologize for coming, you know? You always act like it would bother me.” she glanced sideways, watching the shinobi crack his knuckles and settle into the pillows behind him. His scarred Sharingan eye met her sideways glance before his head turned towards her. Was he making sure to remember this? “No pervy novel tonight either, that’s not the Kakashi I know.”

He responded with a shrug, face and eyes going back to the ceiling, calculating but relaxed. Kakashi was constantly on edge, maybe that’s from his Anbu captain days. She wondered what he was like before all of that happened to him, before Rin, before his father. What kind of man would Kakashi Hatake be if none of that happened. Would he be married now? Have kids? Still be an Anbu?

“You’re staring.” His voice snapped her out of it.

“I- I was not staring, I was just...” She trailed off, huffing quietly. Kakashi smiled softly under his mask as how flustered she got. He wondered if she would do what she did four nights prior in her sleep. Kakashi had been sitting awake reading his novel as she snored softly, murmuring nonsense. He looked down, watching her, contemplating what she could be dreaming about (hoping it may have been him). She furrowed her brows and reached her arm across her bed, placing it over his waist and pulled herself against his flank, one of her legs bending to rest over his.

Kakashi froze when she did, the Icha Icha novel forgotten, but still open in his fingers. He slowly closed the book, trying his best to stay as still as possible as to not to disturb the woman curled up in the crook of his torso and his hips. His fingers threaded through her soft hair, a knot growing in his stomach and she squeezed his body just a little tighter. Kakashi thought to himself that he wouldn’t mind ending ever night of the rest of his life like this, just her and him... and the hounds. But just the two of them. Maybe he wouldn’t mind a kid, but if not, this would do just fine for him.

“You know,” Kakashi turned his attention back to the present as she finally broke the silence. “you’ve always had that mask on. Why? I mean, every time you come here you’re still wearing it. Even after all these years we’ve known each other.”

He chuckled quietly. “Just... something I’ve always done. Even before the Anbu or the Academy. I look too much like my family... too much like my father.”

“I bet it’s a handsome face.”

“Hm?”

“Your face under the mask. I bet it’s handsome. Maybe it’s not a bad thing to look like your clan, Kakashi, after all, you’re your own person. What happened to your father is no reflection on who you are.”

Silence hung over the two, neither wanting to say what they so desperately wanted to. He was too afraid to love and she was too afraid to get hurt. Kakashi made up his mind, his fingers reaching up and lowering the fabric in the presence of another for the first time in a very long time. She watched, eyes growing wide as he let out a breath as the cool air touched the bottom half of his face.

Of course he was that gorgeous. Of course he looked like a god in the moonlight. Of course Kakashi Hatake was the pussy magnet he was. She noticed small details. Particularly he beauty mark under his bottom lip, lips that curved perfectly and looked soft. She smiled when he looked down from her gaze, cheeks tinged pink with the embarrassment of being admired.

“I was right.” He looked back at her as she stroked a hand through his silver hair.

“Don’t flatter me.” he said.

She felt particularly brave. Why? She didn’t think she knew. But she turned Kakashi’s face and pressed her lips to his, and they were soft. So soft. The hand reaching around her back was calloused from years of missions and training, but the arms that enveloped her were sturdy and strong. They didn’t kiss one another rough, there wasn’t just lust between them. They had more, something unspoken, something that started years ago when his soft knuckles hesitantly touched her window for the first time.

“You can come to me anytime, Kakashi.” she said to him that day with a smile after he had disclosed to her about his night terrors. “Sometimes it helps when someone else is there.”

Kakashi whined ever so softly at the loss of her kiss when she pulled away. Her soft laughter was music to his ears, he didn’t want to lose her, but it would be so much worse if she was with someone else.

“I’m afraid.” Kakashi confessed. She listened, locking her eyes with his as she carded through his hair softly. “If I lost you like I lost everyone else... I don’t know what I’d do... I want you, but I don’t want to get attached and have you ripped away from me.”

“Oh ‘Kashi...” Her eyes held a sadness, a small amount of pity for him. Of course he was scared, but to hear the copy ninja himself say he was afraid just felt different. “You don’t need to be afraid, but it’s okay to be.”

“It’s always been you, you know? Even when it seemed like I wanted nothing to do with you.” She blushed. “In reality, I was afraid that if I let myself love you, you’d get taken from me...”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her face between his neck and her arms. He wrapped one arm around her upper back and the other around her waist, pulling her as close as possible. He didn’t need her to answer, the way she held him now was enough for Kakashi to know. “Don’t you have to meet your students tomorrow morning? It really is quite late.”

“Mh. They’re used to it.” he murmured to her. He was always late, always has been, always will be. And to be with her, he’ll be late to everything. She laughed lightly, swinging herself off his body and sitting back with him, her arm touching his.

“So we’re going to try?�� she asked. Kakashi nodded once and brought his arm up and around her shoulders, sighing contently when she rolled a bit to tuck herself against him. This was going to be fine this time, that’s what they both told themselves. It would be fine.

#kakashi x reader #kakashi x you #kakashi #kakashi hatake #fluff #I posted this on ao3 first #sorry for formatting issues

135 notes · View notes

silverstarlightwrites · 3 years

Text

ah yes, the idea for yet another variant of this au chain

Team Seven take the mission to the Land of Waves. On the bridge, they fight Zabuza and Haku.

On the bridge, Sakura dies.

For a moment that lasts forever, everything seems to freeze. It’s shock, initially, on every face. Haku’s mirrors are in the midst of cracking apart, Naruto and Sasuke standing bloody and back-to-back between them, while Haku lunges across the expanse of stone to protect Zabuza from the shrill and deathly lightning in Kakashi’s hand.

Even Sakura herself seems stunned, rotating midair as if in slow motion. She seems unsure of herself, or how exactly she got where she is - bolted from one end of the bridge to the other, abandoning her post as Tazuna’s bodyguard to intercept Haku on their way to Kakashi.

And she’s made it, to her credit. Caught Haku just before they reach Zabuza, tagged them with her kunai. There’s blood on their clothes, a stark red streak against pale skin and fabric.

They’ve spun at the contact, reflexive, defensive. Somehow, even with the Chidori roaring in Kakashi’s palm, the world goes silent as Haku’s senbon sinks into Sakura’s neck. It’s all too slow as the strike transfers momentum, as Sakura’s feet lift from the ground and the senbon tears out of her throat. Sasuke stares on with Sharingan ablaze, unable to breathe, unable to look away as his eyes dutifully and traitorously record Sakura’s death in minute, excruciating detail. He doesn’t know, just yet, what the cost of his clan’s power truly is.

But Kakashi does, only too terribly well, and as time catches up with itself and Sakura goes crashing into the bridge, he strikes. His hand punches straight through Zabuza’s ribcage, tearing through his heart until Kakashi’s fingers protrude from his back. The surprise on his face is overlaid with the relief on Rin’s, and Kakashi yanks back, turns away, refuses to look at her ghost with the blood on his hands.

Sasuke is frozen, unblinking, struggling to breathe. He can’t drag his gaze away from Sakura’s body, and she looks so small where she’s crumpled on the bridge, utterly motionless in an expanding puddle of her own blood. He can’t see colours, except for the crimson, as if everything else has been spontaneously switched off.

She’s still breathing, barely, a weak flutter that-- Gods, Sasuke thinks he might be imagining it, actually, he can’t tell, and her body is outlined in white fire that he knows isn’t real, Sharingan whirring, head spinning. The world rotates.

It ruptures, all at once, as Naruto lets out an ear-piercing scream at Sasuke’s side. Whatever was holding it all snaps, and Sasuke whips around to check on Naruto, and sees the menacing red bleeding into blue eyes, sees the way his teeth are cracking and elongating in his jaws, the fangs that are too big for Naruto’s skull, the ink creeping out from the birthmarks on his cheeks, winding back along his temples and down his nose.

There’s a shout, Kakashi’s voice, but Naruto has already vanished in a blur of sticky red chakra and the shattering of the stone under his feet, and by the time Sasuke can find him again he’s already torn into Haku like a wild animal, cracking bone and shredding flesh. Their head rolls away from their body, before Naruto pounces on it.

The skull pancakes under Naruto’s hand, a splatter of brains like a water balloon bursting, a tongue poking from between his fingers and an eyeball popping into the air and arcing away. Naruto is snarling, glowing, and there’s blood dripping from every footprint he leaves, his skin melting and boiling as fast as it heals under the cloak of-- of-- oh gods, and Sasuke doesn’t even know, can’t even comprehend what it is that he’s seeing. A Naruto that isn’t himself, isn’t even human, and there are ethereal tails forming and lashing from the dark red chakra itself, two-- three. Long curves that look like ears, deep gouges in the stone as his nails-- claws, they’re claws, wickedly sharp, and they look more like bone than fingernail, like the animal is too big to be contained by Naruto’s real body.

Haku is in pieces under Naruto’s attack, and he won’t stop slashing and biting and shredding. Nausea boils up, fear and panic and Sasuke doesn’t fucking understand but he’s pretty fucking sure that he doesn’t want to, and it’s almost a relief when he has to turn away to vomit.

Kakashi’s voice is in the air, and every fibre of his body wants to help ruin the people who’ve killed Sakura right in front of them, wants to sprint to her side and try to save her - but he can’t, he knows, and he can’t lose control like his kids are. He’s the leader. He’s the adult. There’s too much blood under Sakura already, her carotid artery sundered by the attack, and she’s just a child, she’s beyond help, beyond Kakashi’s rudimentary skills in medical ninjutsu, she’s already gone and there’s nothing Kakashi can do to save her. Because there’s never anything he can do to save her.

But he can’t lose control, and he needs to triage the situation as best he can. If he fails to act, then he’ll lose Naruto too. He’ll lose Sasuke. He’ll lose all of them. So he sprints to Naruto, tackles him to the ground, ignores the sudden searing agony of the Kyuubi’s chakra biting into his skin. Naruto is wild, lost in the onslaught of his demon and grief, but where the Kyuubi’s domination brings with it new and unique strengths, it also brings weaknesses.

It takes more chakra and effort than Kakashi has, but he makes Naruto look him in the eye, brings as much of the Sharingan’s power to bear as he can. For a minute, struggling to keep Naruto down while he howls and snaps his teeth and tries to bite through Kakashi’s wrists, nothing visibly happens. Kakashi is shaking by the time Naruto finally stills, takes a deep breath, lets out a noise like a dying animal.

When Naruto slumps, the Kyuubi locked back into its cage, Kakashi goes down with him.

Sasuke’s approach is slow, shuddering, uncertain. His eyes are burning, and he can’t tell if it’s from chakra or from tears, but he doesn’t care. Naruto and Kakashi are breathing, tangled together in an unconscious pile, and Sasuke can’t even begin to think what to do with them so he ignores them. Goes to Sakura instead. She’s sprawled, her skin scraped and raw from her impact and tumble against the bridge, her throat torn open. Sasuke’s never seen what the inside of a larynx looks like before.

He turns away as he gags, but there’s nothing left to come up except a violent ache so deep that Sasuke thinks, for a moment, that he might be about to die as well. Sakura is limp when he tries to pick her up, warm and pliable and lifeless in his hands. He can’t get them to stop shaking, makes a mess as he tries to wipe her hair out of her face. Smears blood everywhere. It’s matted in her hair, the normal pink warped into a blurring crimson.

It’s the ninken who actually take control. Pakkun sets Bull and Shiba to guard Tazuna, even though the threat to him is gone. The cold reality is that they’re acting more like prison guards than bodyguards; Konoha has lost a genin and nearly lost her whole team, and it rarely forgives such offences. Guruko establishes a small parameter around the scene, and Akino keeps the remaining civilians in a tight group. Urushi comes to sit vigil with Sasuke, and they let him cradle Sakura’s body to his chest and cry.

With only a few words, Pakkun has Ūhei unsummon herself, and she vanishes in a puff of smoke to report to the Hokage and get a rescue team sent after them. With Bisuke’s help, Pakkun himself sets to untangling Naruto and Kakashi and ensuring they’ll live through this. Shiba, the only ninken with a lightning affinity, is pulled off Tazuna duty to give Kakashi a chakra transfusion; he jolts and moans when it’s delivered, but it’s a necessary agony and he doesn’t fully wake.

When Gatō makes his appearance, Bisuke vanishes and reappears on his shoulders, and his entourage is sent fleeing in panic as she rips out his throat too with delicate, savage fangs.

By the time that Ūhei returns with a rescue squad at her side, Naruto is awake again and he refuses to let anyone take Sakura’s body from him but the masked Anbu simply picks them up together. Gai is firm but gentle as he carries Kakashi - not quite awake, but beginning to stir. Sasuke tries to stand - he’s numb and hollow, and he thinks that he should feel like he did when he found Itachi over the bodies of their parents but he doesn’t. He doesn’t feel anything.

Perhaps he should feel guilty for that.

His legs fail him, however, and maybe he should feel pathetic for not even being able to pick himself up from the ground but he can’t bring himself to care as he’s carefully lifted up by Asuma. Sasuke wants nothing more than to stop existing while he watches his team over Asuma’s shoulder, stares unblinking at the way Naruto shakes and begs Sakura to wake up. She won’t.

She won’t ever again.

The ninken make the trip back with them, and if it is a quick affair then it is also a haunting one. Naruto doesn’t shut up the entire time, alternating between talking to the girl who cannot hear him and muttering quietly to himself. If Sasuke looks closely enough, he can see the flash of fangs in Naruto’s mouth that never quite flatten again.

The report to Hiruzen lasts for a lifetime, and is over far too soon. Kakashi is lucid by then, standing on his own feet but with Gai’s continued assistance. His report is... empty. Perhaps that’s as it should be - he does not cry, for death has already wrung from him as many tears as he could ever give it, but his voice is icy and his gaze is bitter and grim. He recommends, as emotionlessly as he explains all the rest, that Konoha execute Tazuna for his crimes.

Naruto finally surrenders Sakura’s body when her parents arrive. He and Sasuke will never forget the way they break when he does, the collapse and the howling and the way that Sakura is stiff and pale in their arms. Her eyes are still open, glazed and green and unseeing.

Why are her eyes still open?

Afterwards, after Sasuke and Naruto are released from Team Seven’s trip to the hospital but Kakashi is coerced to stay, two of the ninken stick around. Ūhei sticks to Sasuke’s side like a parasite, a warmth and stability that Sasuke finds himself loathing, while Bisuke trails Naruto at a short but definitive distance.

Naruto doesn’t let Sasuke wander home alone. He wants to, desperately, wants to hide away in the ocean of death that he lives in and-- gods, and what, exactly? Showering is an option that should be appealing, but it’s not. Even the thought of washing Sakura’s blood off himself - of erasing the last tangible evidence of her life - is sickening. They’d been cruel to her, in life. Sasuke had expected little of her at all, and he hadn’t cared if she’d known it. Naruto, with his puppy-love, hadn’t been better.

Except she was dead, and in the end her strength hadn’t mattered at all. Any one of them could have been caught the way she was - and it was bravery that had killed her, not weakness. She’d left the safety of distance and thrown herself in the way, in between their sensei and an incoming attack, and there was no way of knowing if Haku could have hurt or killed Kakashi in the attempt but Sakura had prevented it from even being an option.

Had she known? Had it been a decision on her part, or had it been instinct and desperation? Had she ever realised that-- gods, had she ever known that her team loved her?

A glare isn’t enough to discourage Naruto from following Sasuke home, as it never has been, and there’s a chance that Sasuke could make him leave with words but--

He can’t bring himself to speak. Not once, not at all. His voice feels like a weight in his throat, like he’s swallowed marbles, and that’s fine, really, because what right does he have to fucking use it anyway? Sakura’s voice has been stripped away. She’ll never speak again, and Sasuke deserves to far less than she does.

Did.

The dogs never leave their sides over the following weeks. Ūhei and Bisuke are their most common company, but all eight of the ninken rotate in and out. Naruto refuses to go back his own home, wherever the fuck it is. At first Sasuke hates him for it, hates everything, but eventually Naruto is absent for half a day - training, he says when he gets home - and Sasuke panics.

So much is gone. Almost everything is gone. Sakura is gone. And gods Naruto is annoying - but he understands, actually, Sasuke can see now, despite the absurd and cheery exterior he’d worn before. He’s always understood, and the cheerfulness was a lie. Or, perhaps, a choice. And the fear of losing him to is so overwhelming that Sasuke simply never asks him to leave.

They attend Sakura’s funeral. It’s... eerie. Too many people and too few people at the same time. Some that Sasuke doesn’t recognise - too many that he does. Sasuke stands between Naruto and Kakashi, and Kakashi doesn’t say a word to them, to anyone, and Sasuke lets Naruto hold onto his hand with a crushing grip. Ino approaches them, afterwards, and habit has Sasuke bracing himself but there’s no admiration in her eyes this time. She snarls at them. “It should have been you.”

It’s hard to argue with her.

Sakura’s parents are... unbearable. The agony in their expressions is so familiar, so intimate, and yet they’re so kind to Sasuke and Naruto despite the fact they let their daughter die. When Mebuki learns that they’re living on their own - not a parent between them - she begins visiting them. They’re not social calls, not really, and she doesn’t linger too long, but her visits are scheduled and regular, and bring with them meals put together for Sasuke and Naruto and whatever cleaning they haven’t managed between them. After the first week, she brings small snacks for whichever of the ninken are with them as well.

Kizashi gives them two stuffed animals and Sakura’s hitai-ite. The toys are generic - a very round bird and a fox, both worn by time and use - but they were hers, and beloved when she was small. Naruto tries to refuse the hitai-ite, because surely her parents want to keep such an important thing, but Kizashi insists. He doesn’t want it, he tells them. He would rather remember Sakura as his daughter, and not as a Konoha soldier.

Perhaps there’s merit in that, but Sasuke and Naruto set it between her toys on the dresser in their room, next to their team photos, and they can’t bring themselves to work out the bloodstains in the fabric, but the plate is kept perfectly polished. Maybe her parents just don’t understand - but Sakura was proud of her position as a Konoha-nin, and she died fulfilling it.

It’s a little shameful, of course, that Sasuke is sharing his room with Naruto - but Naruto disagrees, and Sasuke can’t bring himself to care. Sleeping alone has proven... difficult. And pride is worthless.

The dogs never leave, but Naruto and Sasuke don‘t see Kakashi after Sakura’s funeral. There are meetings with Hiruzen, visits from some of the other jōnin, and no matter how vehemently they protest, they’re assigned a new sensei. It’s hideously uncommon, and it’s not Kaede-sensei’s fault, but Sasuke can’t help but hate her too. She can’t replace Kakashi, and Sasuke resents her for even trying, no matter that Kakashi-sensei has abandoned them. At least they’re not given a new teammate. As if anyone could possibly replace Sakura.

“The dog-Anbu is back,” Naruto says one day, while they spar under Kaede’s watchful eye. “I think... I think it might be Kakashi-sensei.”

And Sasuke knows about the dog-Anbu, of course. Though he rarely speaks himself, Naruto has no such compunction, and his chatter has become a familiar comfort. A Naruto who’s talking is a Naruto who’s alive. He’s told Sasuke all about growing up, about the loneliness and the dread. About the hatred of the village. The dog-Anbu had been the most familiar regular amongst the quiet tail of Anbu who’d watched Naruto his entire life - and yet never intervened. Had it been willful, or were they under orders? Hard to say, given that they were almost never given direct trouble anymore. The civilians who saw them out and about - on the rare occasion they were - were either too sympathetic or too wary to confront them. There was no opportunity to intervene even if the dog-Anbu wanted to.

That the surreptitious Anbu presence was back should have been concerning, but... Naruto had always found comfort in the recognisable dog-Anbu. Maybe it was contagious.

And if Kakashi was still watching them, then he hadn’t abandoned them. Somehow, it made Kaede’s training more welcome.

Jiraiya becomes part of their lives. He’s an irregular and brief presence, but he drifts in and out. They meet him early, and Naruto refuses to leave Sasuke’s side to fulfill whatever task Jiraiya has for him, and so they learn together the truth of the beast caged inside Naruto’s skin. Jiraiya works on the Seal, repairs what he can from the damage Naruto did on the bridge, ensures its continued integrity. He’s hard to like on a personal level, but they don’t begrudge his visits when they happen - making sure Naruto has control of the demon is imperative. He can’t use a power he can’t control.

Because that’s their secret, of course. In the dead of night, in the quiet of the Uchiha compound, when it’s just them and the ghosts. Naruto practices, with Sasuke on hand - Sasuke who’s learnt from Jiraiya that the Sharingan can manipulate the Bijuu, who finally understands what it was Kakashi did to bring Naruto down when Sakura died - and Sasuke practices with him, and forces back what power slips beyond Naruto’s grasp when they break open tiny cracks in the Seal.

And Naruto helps Sasuke too, offers a barrier of stolen demonic chakra that is the only thing, they’ve found, that can provide any resistance to the sticky black flames Sasuke can conjure. It makes his eyes bleed, and the chakra cost is like ashes in his veins, but creating and controlling the Amaterasu gets easier every time he does it.

They’re going to need it. Sasuke isn’t sure if Naruto simply needed the context of Sasuke’s quest for vengeance or if Sakura’s death made him understand the purpose of revenge, but they’re in it together, now. Naruto refuses to leave Sasuke’s side - and if that means following him down the path that leads to killing Itachi, then so be it. His power, despite what Sasuke had once thought, is immense and - somehow - at Sasuke’s disposal.

It’s strange, he thinks. How Naruto can still have faith in people, the differences in how he talks to Sakura’s ghost as if she’s watching them, as if she’s not simply gone, as if she might be proud of them, and how Sasuke can never bring himself to say a single word. Stranger still, how easily Naruto throws that faith away when Sasuke asks him to.

Strange, but comforting. Love, perhaps, if Sasuke lets himself dare to contemplate so fragile and dangerous a thing. And if Naruto will forsake his morals at Sasuke’s behest, then the least he can do is hold true to them. Because one day, when they’re ready, when they’re so strong that nobody will ever be able to rip away a life they love ever again, they’ll hunt down Itachi and make him pay for the lives he tore down.

But first - and maybe it’s practice, or maybe it’s vengeance, or maybe it’s both - they’ll return to the Land of Waves, once they’ve got enough control of their strength, and they’ll burn the Great Sakura Bridge to the ground.

135 notes · View notes