Chapter Text
“Tenzou?”
“Hm?” Tenzou was exhausted. He'd gotten home from his mission in the early hours of the morning and made his report first thing—and then met with the Hokage about Yuki, and then did some extra training with Toru, and then made cookies with Miwa, and then had dinner with the family, and...now his wife Yua now was looking at him, concerned and frowning. “I'm awake,” he said, shoving his chair back from the table and standing.
“It's Haruto,” she said. At long last the house was quiet. The two oldest no longer lived at home and the two youngest were asleep. The two middles were...Tenzou had no idea. Off with their friends? On a mission? He rubbed a hand across his eyes.
“What's wrong with Haruto?” Tenzou asked. “He's been out of the hospital for a month now. Is something the matter?”
“He's...not okay, Tenzou.” Yua stacked the last of the clean dishes in the cupboard, then paused before turning and approaching, taking Tenzou's hands in hers.
“Yeah, of course,” Tenzou's shoulders slumped, his heart aching. Haruto had been on a mission with his team of two other chuunin and a Jounin captain—and they had all been poisoned. Their captain had made a critical mistake and they had all succumbed to the poison. Haruto sent an emergency message through the ground using the wood style, but by the time backup had arrived, he was unconscious and his entire team was dead. Haruto had only survived thanks to his poison-resistant mokuton genes, and even then, he'd spent more than a month in the hospital recovering. It was a lot for a 15 year old. Hell, it was a lot for anyone.
“He's not eating,” Tenzou's wife said. “He's not training. He's not sleeping. He hardly leaves the house except for missions.”
“I'll talk to him. He shouldn't be this upset—missions go wrong, teammates die. It wasn't his fault.”
“How can you say that!?” Yua yanked her hands away from him, her green eyes like a dangerous, stormy sea. “He's a child!”
“No,” Tenzou said, his voice hard. “He's a shinobi. A chuunin. When I was his age—”
“What they did to you was wrong!” Yua insisted. “And didn't you argue with the Hokage about Yuki's ANBU appointment? How is this any different?”
“ANBU is nothing like one bad mission!” Tenzou said. “It's black ops! Assassination, killing innocent people, it's the dirty jobs, Yua!”
“One bad mission? He lost his entire team!” Yua said. “Don't you have any empathy? Do you care about his feelings at all?”
“I care about him , not his feelings!” Tenzou snapped. “There's no place for feelings when you're a shinobi!”
Yua turned and pulled her apron over her head, then wadded it up and threw it on the floor. She stomped out of the kitchen, yanked open the front door, and walked out into the dark front garden, slamming the door behind her.
“Aaauuurrggh!” Tenzou said. His face was burning red with—anger? Defensiveness? Frustration? Tiredness? He sunk back onto the chair and let his face rest on the table and took a deep breath. Now Haruto was hurting and Yua was angry at him. Shit. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, stewing in his frustration. He needed to get ahold of himself and think this through. He took another deep breath. Then another. And then, exhausted beyond what any normal person could endure, he fell asleep.
*
“Papa?”
Tenzou woke to Miwa's dark eyes peering curiously at him. He startled and sat up. He was still at the kitchen table and sunlight was streaming through the white lace curtains. His face hurt—ow—he had fallen asleep with his happuri on, facedown on the table. Where was Yua? She must have been pretty angry to just leave him there all night. Usually she managed to rouse him and get him up the stairs to collapse on the bed.
“Hey Miwa-chan,” Tenzou said. “Are you off to the Academy?”
“Yes,” Miwa said. She had some toast in one hand and a cup of milk in the other. “Will you walk with me?”
“Of course,” Tenzou said with a smile. Miwa was the youngest of his 6 children, and definitely the sweetest. He had a soft-spot for her—but then, so did pretty much everyone. Even Kakashi, who claimed to want nothing to do with his children until they were at least Genin, had taken a special liking to Miwa. He said it was because looking at her was like looking back in time at a 7 year old Tenzou—or Kinoe as he'd been known back then—from her almond eyes to her chin-length dark hair. Tenzou didn't think there was any way he'd been so cute as a kid, but Kakashi insisted. Then again, Tenzou's friend was definitely biased.
“Where's your mom?” Tenzou asked, standing and stretching. His back hurt from sleeping all slumped over. Yua must have been really pissed.
“Dunno,” Miwa shrugged. “I think she went out already, but she left me breakfast.”
Tenzou sighed. “Come on bug, let's go.”
*
Yua banged on Kakashi's door, and when he didn't answer, she paced up and down the hallway and then went back and banged some more.
“Eeeh, Yua-chan, what's the big idea?” Kakashi opened the door. “ The sun's barely up. Are you alright?”
“No! I'm not alright! I need to speak with you! I need your help!” She pushed past him into his apartment and went back to pacing, agitated.
“Okay,” Kakashi put a hand on her arm and pulled her gently to the kitchen, where he directed her to a chair and then began filling the kettle for tea. Yua sat, her head in her hands, as tense as a tripwire strung taut between two trees. “Tell me then. Is it Tenzou?”
“I don't know if it's him or if it's all you blasted shinobi! But I don't understand him! I can't fathom why he thinks the way he does! His son needs him—or someone—but not me—and he won't—I don't know!”
“Haruto-kun,” Kakashi said softly. He sank into the chair across from Yua, his eyes dark and serious.
“He's not eating, Kakashi, and the things he says—I don't know what to do, and when I asked Tenzou to talk to him he—” she balled her hands into fists and banged them on the table. Kakashi raised his eyebrows. Yua was usually an even-tempered, patient woman. She put up with a lot from Tenzou, and himself, and that small hoard of shinobi children. It was rare to see her this worked up. She took a breath and flattened her hands before continuing. “He said that Haruto's feelings didn't matter. He acted like...like a 15 year old kid should just get over losing his entire team in one mission.”
“Root,” Kakashi said, his voice tense.
“What?”
“It's a training program that was used for a time. Tenzou—Kinoe, back then—was in Root from about 3 or 4 years old until he was 13 and transferred to ANBU.”
“I've never heard about Root,” Yua said. “We've been married for 17 years and he never mentioned...I thought he meant the war, when he said he’d been killing people since he was a child.”
“He doesn't talk about it with me either. But I've known other people from Root and done some research. They train the kids to have no emotions. It's extremely dehumanizing. Most of them learn to be normal eventually, but...”
“Sai-san,” Yua said, sitting up suddenly. “He was Yuki's jounin sensei. Was he from Root?”
“Yes,” Kakashi confirmed, surprised by her perceptiveness. He shouldn't be surprised, after all these years. She may be a civilian, but she was also an archivist. Making connections between disparate information was her speciality.
“So you're saying that because of Root, Tenzou thinks Haruto can just get over this sort of loss?”
Kakashi shrugged, then stood and went to the stove to pour the tea. “Tenzou is incredibly resilient. Things just don't bother him like they do other people. Even in ANBU he...” Kakashi paused, his face darkening. “I don't want you to think less of him, Yua—but we did some horrible things. Things that made me sick to my stomach and kept me up at night. But Tenzou wasn't bothered. He could carry on as usual after, like it was any other mission.”
Yua was quiet, staring at her hands folded on the table. “I don't think less of him for that, or you for your reaction. However, that's not important right now.” She looked and focused on Kakashi, her green eyes intense. “What's important is Haruto. How to help him heal from this. He's home from the hospital, but his spirit is broken, Kakashi. It hurts me to see him like this.”
“Yeah,” Kakashi agreed. He ran a hand through his hair and delivered the teacup to Yua, a spoonful of honey already added to her cup for her. “Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just talking about it.”
“I know that,” Yua said, her voice was desperate. “But if Tenzou won't try, will you, please? Haruto respects you, I know he does. I know you've lost people, or you wouldn't spend so much time at the memorial stone.”
Kakashi bristled, but again, she wasn't wrong. “I don't think it's my place—” he began to protest, but Yua stood up, radiating fury. She was small-statured, her honey-blonde hair in a neat braid, and her brow was furrowed, but she looked just as fearsome as any jounin.
“I don't care about that! I care about Haruto! I'm afraid he's going to hurt himself, Kakashi! I can't help him, and Tenzou won't! I'm not stopping until I find someone, something, anything—” Tears started to trail down her cheeks, and Kakashi was there in an instant, one arm slung around her shoulder, tucking her head under his chin. Almost reflexively, her arms encircled his waist and she took a deep breath. They were very nearly as comfortable together as she and Tenzou were.
“I'll talk to him,” Kakashi reassured her. “And I'll talk to Tenzou. Where is he today?”
“Probably asleep at the kitchen table where I left him last night,” Yua said, her grim voice muffled against Kakashi's shirt.
“Seriously?” Kakashi laughed. “Yua-chan! How can you be so mean to our sweet Tenzou?”
Her chuckles vibrated against his chest, and then she pulled away. “I thought you hated sweet things?”
“Mm, Tenzou is the exception.” Kakashi said. “And Miwa-chan. And I would add you to that list, but you let Tenzou sleep at the table all night. That's not very sweet.”
Yua sighed and sat down to sip her tea. “I know. I should apologize. I'm just...” her brow furrowed again, and tears threatened. Kakashi knew that she was thinking about Haruto again. He wished that he could reassure her more, tell her that her son would be back to normal soon enough, but he knew better than that. Haruto may heal, but he would never be the lazy, carefree boy he had been before. Not ever.