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Chapter 28
🕑 Added 2024-04-28 22:10:10 +0000 UTCA bit of a side chapter, but to be fair that's most of this arc. Kakashi trolling be abound, in both ways.
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Kakashi arrives at the Hokage Tower, having been summoned by a courier ninja. It’s not common that he gets called directly to the tower and not some discreet meeting point where he and a dozen other Jonin listen to the Hokage brief them. He dropped what he was doing immediately, having a drink with a few old ANBU buddies, and raced here on the off chance he has a top secret S rank mission to disappear at a moment’s notice.
Bursting into the Hokage’s office with as much tact as a sprinting and out of breath jonin can have, he stands at attention and gives the man with the hat all the respect and energy he deserves. “Kakashi Hatake, reporting.”
“You’re late.” The Hokage holds a stopwatch in his slightly wrinkled hand. “One minute and six seconds, just a year ago you would have been here in one minute flat.”
“My sincerest apologies, Hokaga-sama, I have slipped a little in my time away from missions.” He chooses not to point out to the man that he was removed from them on his order, and he was totally willing to get back into the field and get his killing on.
“It’s no matter, this isn’t time-sensitive.” The Hokage waves it off, depositing the stop watch back on his desk. He blatantly ignores Kakashi’s twitch, or the irritated glare he has to hold back lest he disrespect his supreme commander. Questions run through his mind, like for instance, why use a high priority courier ninja then?
He’s not Sakura or Naruto though, outbursts like that tend to be a lot less cute once you’re a Jonin. He keeps his mouth shut.
“You have a mission, paid for by someone who asked to remain anonymous who named you directly,” the Hokage informs him, “you need to accept it before I give you the details though.”
The thoughts on what that could be race through Kakashi’s head at a thousand times a second. There’s so many people that might want to order a secret mission with his name. Even ignoring his ANBU history and that his status as a captain is almost as poorly kept as a secret as Naruto’s burden, he’s the Copycat Ninja and his skillset is wide and varied. He’s allowed to take all kinds of missions that many ninjas would be restricted from, and his resume would put him in line for the Hokage position if the old man happened to die an unfortunate and random death. Hopefully that never happens, certainly not anytime soon, he’s not sure he could handle the hat if everyone tried to force it on him in some form of expression of camaraderie.
Then there’s people that might order a mission specifically to get him killed, and the Hokage might have a side mission for him to eliminate them, or maybe he needs to scout something out with his Sharingan that no one else could possibly do because, well, unless they’re hiring Itachi…
Sasuke’s awakening of his copy eyes is new and unknown, he’s been ordered not to show it off until the perfect time for dramatic effect. Matters like that are best hidden until you can shock and awe your opponent. The reality is that a lot of being a ninja is a spectacle, because you need to distract your enemy for just one moment, that’s what a ninja fight is, one distraction after another until one side makes a mistake. It’s why Doujutsu are so strong despite being just another advantage. Extra senses to improve your chances of lasting longer without slipping up are practically the ultimate advantage you can bring into any fight, besides maybe speed, surprise, and violence of action.
“And my team?” He asks.
“It’s a quick mission, they won’t be put out.” The Hokage says, holding the mission out.
He grabs it with a hint of uncertainty but knows denying it was never a real option. The Hokage sent for him because it was approved, he wasn’t asking him, he was telling him.
Despite his trepidation, the moment it’s in his hands Kakashi quickly opens the mission, unsure what to expect, fear flowing through him. He gets a flashback about another time he got a mission just like this, and the Hokage’s stone-cold expression doesn’t help differentiate the two anymore than his shaky hands do.
“Your mission is to answer one question.” The Hokage says with perfect timing.
The mission has four words in bold. “How many Jars, Kakashi.”
“Hokage-sama, I cannot accept this mission.” He gulps.
“I am ordering you to accept it.” The Hokage says proudly, daring him to object. “Because I too, want to know how many jars, Kakashi.” The man in charge of their villages says this with all the seriousness any trained and practiced old man can manage, pulling out a pad of paper and clicking a pen with pronunciation to it that somehow echoes around the entire room. “How am I supposed to make the jar principle if I don’t have a good answer to write into law?”
“You could make one.” Kakashi says as respectfully as he can while still clearly getting across the ‘I hate you’ vibe he’s so well known for.
“It’s your mission, not mine.” The Hokage teases. “You’re hesitance is duly noted,” he actually does write something down, “now answer the question.”
They’re so dead to him.
----------------------------------------------------
Sasuke felt like something was off the mere moment he entered his apartment.
Many would think he’d stay at the Uchiha compound, but that place is littered with memories he’d rather scrub from his memory if at all possible. It’s hard to talk about what his brother did to him, but even ignoring the gruesome murder of everyone he knew and loved - a pretty big detail to ignore if you asked him - the mind fuckery was so much worse. Watching him do it, over and over, for what felt like years? He broke inside. Merely stepping near the compound brings back all the pain, but worse, it brings back the desire. The parts inside of him that never grew up, even as the world changed around him and his clan was rapidly forgotten.
The desire to kill, to slaughter, to cut into Itachi and not stop until all that remains is shredded chunks of what was once a demon in disguise as a person. One thing he doesn’t talk about, is Itachi didn’t just make him watch, sometimes, every once in a while, he’d spice the illusion up by switching it to his big brother’s eyes and making him do it. He’d feel every movement, every calculated thought, every twist and turn of his body as he slaughtered everyone in sight. Itachi had felt good when he’d done it, he’d felt like he was on top of the world. Itachi felt powerful.
That power was intoxicating, and even setting his eyes on his old home brings it all back. His emotions would mix, get confused, he’d want to kill as much as he’d want to run.
All that to say, Sasuke Uchiha steps nowhere near the compound, never, not even once in the last few years has he even approached the street it’s on. It could be a crater in the ground for all he knows at this point, it’s not important to him. He hired a few ninja to get things from there for him, like jutsu scrolls, and the banks handled the transfer of finances, that was good enough for him.
The unsettled feeling of disruption in his home passes quickly, all it takes is spotting that a set of cupboards are closed with his sharp eyes. He doesn’t normally close his cupboards, he’d rather see every spot everywhere in his entire house at a glance. He must have been feeling off earlier.
“It’s fine.” He mumbles, walking over to it, and grabbing the handles of the doors to his cup storage. “Just forgot.”
Pulling the cupboards wide open-
Crrshhhh!
He’s immediately bowled over by hundreds of tiny attackers. He doesn’t have the time to activate his Sharingan and figure out what they are, he just knows they’re falling for him and they’re already on him so he doesn’t have time to roll or bounce or attack. He lifts his arms to cover his face, ensuring that whatever took cover in his home can’t gouge out his eyes before he has a chance to slit their throat and punish them for attempting to disrupt his calm once again.
His heart races, flashbacks hit him hard, blood stains all over the walls and mangled corpses. Sakura’s never scared him with her brutality, she’s scared him with the lack of emotion she shows while doing it. He sees his brother in her, the perfect embodiment of what an Uchiha should be, but also a chaotic monster that can turn in an instant.
He pants, covering his eyes when he doesn’t find himself attacked further, and centering himself. “Fuck…”
It’s a lot, it always is. He much prefers missions, he found on their latest mission that he hates home and loves the fields where he can see both his teammates at all times.
He activates his Sharingan as he looks down, swiping the offending objects off of him. They’re not people, they're jars?
“Three hundred, sixty two.” He hears from his side, looking up and seeing his sensei standing there with a notepad and a pen. “That’s how many jars before a D rank becomes a C rank. Any thoughts?”
“What the fuck.” The boy huffs, deactivating his Sharingan and groaning deeply. “You broke into my house for that?”
“You wanted to know.” Kakashi says. “Time to go inform the Harunos.”
“... You could have left a note!”
Comments
Christopher Cummins
Three hundred, Sixty Two.
Dopplerdee
Kakashi is very done with his kids.
