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Chapter Text

Kakashi was going to die.

He gulped deep, rasping breaths of air, bruised arms trembling under the phantom weight of his opponent's last blow. His right wrist throbbed in tempo with his racing heart.

Bright moonlight rolled behind a tumultuous veil of clouds, bringing his opponent in and out of its unearthly light. The bulky Mist jounin walked a shuriken across his scarred knuckles.

"I'm waiting, brat. Is that all you've got?"

Kakashi was twelve years old, and he was going to die.

Takeda Ichiro's silhouette waited silently in the dark, motionless except for the dancing shuriken. The deep slash across Kakashi's shoulder blades screamed with every minute adjustment to his stance. Blood welled up as he shifted, dripping in rivulets down his heaving shoulders.

I'm not strong enough.

He should have been able to win. His village needed this. He needed this.

What kind of chuunin couldn't complete a B-rank solo?

The blood, a saturated black in the darkness, trickled down to his hand. Kakashi fought the nearly overwhelming urge to wipe it off—he'd simply have to adjust to the slicker grip. Moonlight bathed the clearing again. Takeda was still watching him, amusement clear in his hawk-like eyes.

Kasumi-nee-chan would cry. She'd rant and rave and smash a hole through the Raikage's office, but in the end, she'd cry.

Pine needles rustled behind him as the icy wind picked up. He shivered, fighting keep his focus on the man in front of him—how much blood had he lost?

Dad will cry. He'd cried when Mom had died. Cried, and then gone frighteningly quiet, hugging Kakashi and stroking his hair over and over.

He wanted to see his father smile again. He didn’t want to leave him alone.

His lips twisted in a silent snarl.

I’m not dead yet.

Kakashi's bloody grip tightened spastically on the tanto. He balanced carefully on the balls of his feet.

The jounin smirked.

A cloud drifted over the moon, drenching the clearing in shadow. Kakashi snapped his tanto up, ignoring the racking scream of pain from his back, and leapt into a sprint. Takeda flung his shuriken, forcing Kakashi to twist violently into a dodge.

The world dissolved in a haze of white.

Muscle memory was all that kept him on his feet through the rotation, stars spinning before his eyes as he landed and stumbled sideways. Takeda paced toward him through the night, a kunai flashing steel-bright in his palm. Kakashi swayed as the clearing swooped around him, pain like fire radiating from his wound. He grasped weakly at his blade.

Not yet.

"Nice move, brat. Let's see you do—gurkk."

An arc of red.

Blood.

What…?

A geyser of dark, viscous fluid sprayed from the man's throat, splashing violently across the dry ground. Takeda's limp body lurched forward, mouth dripping red and gaping in grim parody of a landed fish. It crumpled to the ground with an agonizing slowness, revealing a tall figure behind, unfamiliar weapon still drawn. Kakashi's eyes widened.

Dark clothing, with a two-shouldered, high-collared flak vest, probably forest-green in the daylight—Konoha. The pale skin of a foreign ninja, topped by spiky hair in a color that had to be blond, even in the darkness. And the way the Leaf-nin had simply appeared out of nowhere—

Konoha's Yellow Flash.

Kakashi's heart thudded wildly.

He was going to die.

Not yet.

He narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth, forcing fatigued arms up in a defensive stance. The Yellow Flash stood silent, motionless, his face indiscernible in the distance and the darkness. After a long moment, the man shifted, reaching into his weapons pouch behind his hip. Kakashi tensed, knees bending to leap away as the man tossed something forward.

A roll of bandages landed two feet away.

"Get yourself bandaged up. You'll bleed to death before you make it home."

Trap, it had to be. But... if the Yellow Flash wanted him dead, all he had to do was flicker behind him and slit his throat. The man had proven that easily enough with Takeda.

Slowly, eyes never leaving the motionless shinobi, Kakashi reached forward. The bandages were soft against his calloused fingers. He held them stiffly, straightening carefully and edging out of the clearing. The Leaf-nin watched him go.

Just as the tree branches blocked his sight-line, the moon broke out from behind the wall of clouds. Blue eyes pierced his own before their owner vanished, not even a waft of smoke to mark his passing.

Kakashi ran.

Chapter Text

Four Days Earlier

"They captured another girl yesterday."

Hatake Sakumo, renowned as the White Fang of Kumogakure no Sato, paused in his sip of tea. He set the ceramic cup down with a thunk on the low dining table, the pale green liquid sloshing against its sides.

"A Hyuuga?"

The dark-skinned woman across the table scowled. "Think so. Young. Genin, if I had to guess. I don't have the clearance to know for sure."

"I see," Sakumo said.

It didn't come as a surprise, really, except for how soon it was after the last. An entire wing in the Torture and Interrogation HQ had been outfitted to study foreign bloodline limits, the Hyuugas' Byakugan included. Frequent kidnappings of shinobi off the battlefield had led the Leaf clan to develop a curse seal to prevent the theft of their prized eyes. The girl faced a long, painful examination and an eventual death when the seal's chakra burned her eyes to raw pits.

Sakumo had been a jounin for two decades, slit throats on the battlefield and assassinated men in their beds. The child's fate still turned his stomach.

He pushed his cup away. "Thanks for informing me, Kasumi-kun."

"Forget about it." She waved his thanks away. "'S the least I can do, Sensei." The younger jounin leaned back, bracing her weight on her palms. She huffed out a slow breath, blowing uneven, platinum-blond bangs from her face. "So..." She peered at him from the corners of intent black eyes. "What's the verdict?"

For a moment, Sakumo stared longingly at his sencha tea, wishing it were something stronger.

No. That's not a road you can go down. Not again. The silver-haired man took a deep breath through his nose, hauling himself forcibly back to the present. The air in the house was crisp with the scent of juniper, underlain by the faintest musk of canine. He exhaled. "Still just house-arrest. For now, anyway. Gods only know what they'll decide later."

Kasumi glared at the teapot steaming innocently on the table. "Fuckin' bastards. You don't deserve this shit." She paused, then said, "How's the kid taking it?"

Sakumo looked down, taking in the table's dark grain. He and Kakashi hadn't had a conversation deeper than dinner plans for weeks. Kakashi...Kakashi couldn't be happy with him, but he hadn't shut Sakumo out yet. Sakumo was going to hold onto that for as long as he could. "...Better," he replied. "Than...before, I mean. He's been quiet lately, but he still talks to me. That's good, right?"

Kasumi shrugged. "Yeah. The kid'll get over it. He did last time."

"It's been weeks."

"Yeah, well, he's old enough to understand, now."

Sakumo's frustration flared. "He was old enough to understand then, Kasumi, and he didn't speak a word to me for two months!"

The kunoichi winced.

Sakumo deflated. "I'm…I'm sorry. Just…bad memories."

Not going there.

"Well…I mean, you're handling it better this time," the younger jounin began again with an impressive attempt at tact. "Maybe he will, too."

Sakumo ran a calloused palm through his hair, setting the tail swishing against his shoulder blades. "I hope. I just wish I knew what's going on in his head."

It's been three weeks, and I still have no idea what he's thinking.

"Only one way to find out." Kasumi flipped to her feet, brushing off her pants efficiently. "Kakashi should be back from his mission soon. Guess I have a trip to the Raikage Tower to make."

Sakumo cocked an eyebrow at her, but he felt some of the omnipresent tension across his shoulders lessen. Kasumi, at least, could check up on Kakashi when he was out and about in the village.

The kunoichi smiled back in a parody of sweetness, already whipping through hand signs. She vanished in a cloud of mist. Sakumo felt the courtesy flare of chakra from the ANBU stationed around his home, marking Kasumi's passing of the property line.

Sakumo took a deep breath in through his nose. His lungs inflated fully, and he held the air until they began to burn. He exhaled slowly through his mouth, trying to shelve the dark thoughts and tense mood.

"We'll get through this."

I hope.

Hatake Kakashi stalked through the polished granite corridors of the Raikage Tower, shoulders pulled back in stiff parade march. His eyes bored holes in the back of the thick grey flak jacket in front of him, and he wondered, hypothetically, how much force it would take to lodge a kunai through the center of it.

Shinobi Rule Nineteen. No emotions.

Nails like claws pricked his palms, and Kakashi slowly uncurled white-knuckled fists. He brought a hand up, clinically studying the chakra sparking across his fingers. The static popped sullenly.

He'd had better control when he was seven.

In front of him, the chuunin office worker half-turned to eye him, disdain in the curl of her lip. Kakashi suppressed a flinch, forcing his features into an emotionless stare. She released him with a mockingly polite bow at the base of the tower.

"Traitor brat," she muttered as she turned away.

Kakashi bit down on a growl, sparks once again crackling around his fingers. He took a deep breath to calm himself, features settling back into a stoic mask. Pacing out of the shadowed entrance, he slipped into a nearby alley. Unless he had missed his guess, he wasn't alone.

Especially not after today.

Kakashi narrowed his eyes, sharpening focus on the chakra flickers in the surrounding stone. He could just barely…

There.

Perched in the shadows of a rocky crag halfway up the tower, the faintest twist of dampened chakra. An ANBU operative. He was being watched.

Like Dad, after...

Blood dripped everywhere, spilling on the floor, crawling along the cracks in the wood. All Kakashi could do was stare, frozen, as Kasumi-nee-chan rushed in and screamed for the ANBU...

Kakashi ground the heels of his hands against suddenly aching eyes.

Damnit. He didn't have time for this.

With a purely mental shake, Kakashi turned his eyes to his surroundings. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows over the village. Pools of darkness swallowed nooks and crannies where the deep blue and stone-gray buildings stood tall against the dying light. Citizens scurried between them, rushing to finish their errands.

Taking a subtle, preparatory breath, Kakashi moved forward into the din, determinedly ignoring his ANBU shadow.

A few minutes passed silently before Kakashi turned left and brushed through the door of a large, bustling shop. The air smelled of burning coal and white-hot iron, and it rang with the ping-ping-ping of hammers striking metal. From behind the counter, the battle-scarred master smith eyed customers as they examined his weapons.

Kakashi slipped quietly toward the racks on the nearest wall, trying not to draw undue attention. He crept toward the wall display, where strings of kunai hung in neat rows. Deciding on one to purchase, he reached out. His fingers brushed smooth metal.

A hand plowed into him from behind. Only highly-trained reflex allowed him to channel chakra to his feet, sticking him to the floor and preventing him from careening headfirst into the knives. In one smooth move, Kakashi whipped around, weight balanced on the balls of his feet and hand twitching toward the tanto sheathed between his shoulder blades.

A stocky jounin crowded close, towering over him. "Whatta ya think you're doin'?"

Kakashi eyed the man, cursing internally. He'd wanted to avoid this. His gaze flicked to the clan symbol on the jounin's tunic: Yotsuki.

Damnit.

Kakashi held the visible portions of his face blank as he sidestepped around the man. He kept his back to the wall, inching back toward the center of the shop. The Yotsuki jounin pursued, looming. "Say somethin', bastard," he sneered. "What, ya too good to talk to the rest of us? Well, you're not welcome here. You or your traitor father."

Kakashi stole a glance over to the smith. The hulking man gazed straight back, unconcerned. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled—the ANBU was watching, too.

Kakashi sniffed subtly. No trace of alcohol, but in some ways, that made such a brazen attack worse.

Just walk away. That's all he had to do—give up on replenishing his kunai, come back another day. Just keep quiet and walk away.

But he was so, so tired of this.

"He's not a traitor."

"So you do talk." The jounin grinned viciously, crowding closer. "You think you can just stroll in here, not a care in the world, Hatake brat? Your family is worthless," he snarled. "No one wants you. Ya ask me, the Raikage should just gut you like a pig." The man smiled viciously. "Or like your father."

You bastard.

Kakashi's tenuous self-control snapped. Weeks of stifled anger boiled to the surface, and with it came electricity, a pure, stark white that crackled eagerly beneath his skin. He bared his teeth behind his mask. "Shut up."

"Or what, brat?"

The lightning burst from his fingers, tongues licking up Kakashi's forearms. It popped loudly in the sudden silence, casting strange shadows as it twisted like snakes. The edges of his vision darkened as his world narrowed to a pinpoint focus. He could see the rapid pulse below the shinobi's jaw and the hesitation blooming in his eyes. The man was nervous, scared.

Good.

His weight shifted forward.

"Hey!" barked a voice from beside his ear. Kakashi flinched and skipped back into a defensive crouch. The hulking smith glowered from beside him, hand on the loosened katana slung at his waist. "Out," the smith ordered. "Now."

For a moment, Kakashi stood still, lightning crackling hungrily against the air.

The moment broke.

Kakashi took a deep breath and slowly let the lightning die, fading back to a swirl of chakra beneath his skin. He backed his way cautiously out of the shop, watching for any sudden violence. The smith stared him down until his feet passed the threshold, hand never leaving his weapon. The Yotsuki jounin shook off his fear enough to paste a look of disdain across his thin features.

Kakashi all but stumbled into the street, his body trembling with unspent adrenaline and the trailing edges of roiling anger. He clenched his hands into fists and shoved them in his pockets, keeping his head down as he wove away through the crowds toward home. The prickle at the back of his neck was stronger now. The ANBU was following again, now almost on top of him.

Kakashi growled.

He hated this. He hated the glares, hated the whispered insults and half-concealed threats. He was a shinobi of Kumogakure. His father was a shinobi of Kumogakure. They were among allies, among friends.

He was a fool to think that mattered.

Just as he turned off the main street, a rapid pat-pat-pat of running footsteps echoed through the clatter of civilian shoppers. Kakashi hand moved again for his tanto, ears straining toward the sound. He knew that cadence...

"There you are!"

Kakashi twitched.

Kasumi-nee-chan wove fluidly through the crowd, her hitai-ate flashing in the sun. She planted her feet directly in his path and smirked, cracking her knuckles through metal-backed shinobi gloves. "Thought ya could avoid me, huh? I've been looking all over for you."

What.

She paused and narrowed her eyes. "Don't look at me like that." Kakashi lowered his raised brows, falling back into an unimpressed stare. "C'mon. Let's go grab dinner."

Kakashi's anger fell away in seconds, leaving only a bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. "I still have to restock my med kit." And my weapons.

"Kid, you just got back. And there's a new barbeque joint that just opened up." She grinned, snatching at his arm. Kakashi ducked out of the way.

"I'm not in the mood, Kasumi."

"Aw, come on, kid!" She swiped at him again.

He snarled. "I said stop!"

Kasumi froze at his outburst, face taking on a serious cast as she eyed him. Kakashi winced internally. He appreciated the gesture, the teasing normality—or he appreciated on an intellectual level. Right now, it felt more like a reminder of how far things were from normal. He stuffed his hands in his pockets again, turning away. "Can we just...go home?"

Kasumi nodded, still assessing him as he turned away. From the corner of his eye, he saw her casting a glare back at the weapons store. Kakashi strode ahead, and Kasumi trotted to catch up.

"C'mon kid. It's not so bad…" Kasumi said. Over her shoulder, a bookseller met Kakashi's eyes and glared. The man finished gathering up his outdoor display and deliberately locked his door.

Kakashi hunched inward, choosing not to reply. Instead, he forced chakra into his feet and leapt for the rooftops.

"Right," Kasumi's voice drifted from below. "Of course it is."

The setting sun was just beginning to tinge the sky a soft pink when two flickers of chakra tickled Sakumo's senses. Seconds later, a familiar form dropped into view.

"I'm home."

"Welcome home." Sakumo traced the other chakra signature—Kasumi's—as she paused on the other side of the compound wall. Her cool chakra flared in a brief pulse, one Sakumo echoed, before her signature moved away, heading back the way it came.

He pulled his full attention back to his surroundings, knowing Kakashi would have caught the byplay. Indeed, Kakashi was watching him from beneath half-lidded eyes. Sakumo shrugged awkwardly.

Kakashi hummed, seemingly deep in thought.

Sakumo blinked. Kakashi normally vanished to his room the minute he returned home. Now, though, he was standing nearby, almost hovering—not that it showed in the pre-teen's body language, except to those who knew him well. For Kakashi, the complete stillness with which he now held himself could only be iron self-control imposed over nerves.

Stifling silence settled between them as Sakumo racked his brain for something to say.

"Kakashi…" He trailed off, suddenly uncertain. "Would you...like to spar?" He half-expected his son to ignore the request. Kakashi, however, looked up.

Something dark roiled behind his son's eyes.

"…Kakashi?"

"Yeah, Dad, I'm fine." Kakashi spun on his heel, rolling storm-grey eyes. "Can we go?"

"Sure," Sakumo said, hoping his surprise wasn't evident in his face. He paced behind Kakashi's quick stride, following him back through the halls and into the compound's rear grounds. They stepped out onto the veranda overlooking the training area. The grassy ground was strewn with cracked boulders and the occasional twisted pine, and lightning burns spotted the surfaces from decades of ninjutsu.

Standing opposite Kakashi in a clear patch of field grass, Sakumo eyed his son. Kakashi was supremely focused, eyes already tracking Sakumo's every move with a skill that belied his years. "Ready?" he asked the chuunin. Kakashi gave a shallow nod, and Sakumo settled into his stance. "Begin!"

Kakashi shot forward, fingers dancing through the hand signs for a jutsu. Sakumo skipped backward as Kakashi finished, swiping at Sakumo with a lightning-sheathed kunai.

Fast. The move broke against his guard, and Sakumo moved to mimic it. He drew his tanto and channeled energy into the steel. It glowed a stark white, pure chakra crackling along its length.

He swiped at the chuunin. Kakashi dodged the blow, dancing away with the enviable agility of a pre-teen. His son flung a shuriken, hands flying through more seals. With a rush of displaced air, the single weapon multiplied into a flock.

Sakumo dodged the barrage with a well-timed kawarimi and moved to retaliate, settling into the back-and-forth rhythm of the fight. The strain on his muscles was a pleasant burn after weeks of relative inactivity. He had always enjoyed sparring with Kakashi, ever since the first, fumbling fight with the newly-minted genin. It was a way to release tension from the day and to keep their respective repertoires sharp. It was also a way to connect with his son—a necessary one, considering Kakashi's lack of friends or companions his own age.

And that's probably my fault, Sakumo thought as he leapt into a backflip. He neatly dodged Kakashi's attempt to pin him with a mild explosive tag—no, a tag for chakra shocks. Impressive. Kakashi skipped back and flung a kunai in an attempt to forcibly create distance after the failed attack, but Sakumo caught it and launched it straight back.

It was probably his fault that Kakashi had so few, if any, friends. Sakumo hadn't truly considered the repercussions of his actions, especially not on a child who was already an outsider for both his genius and his unprecedented promotion to chuunin at age six.

He'd done so many things wrong in raising his son. Sakumo wouldn't blame Kakashi if he hated him for it.

The spar was just winding down when Kakashi leapt backward once more, fingers flying through well-practiced seals. Sakumo, recognizing the move, skidded to a halt and watched critically. The air crackled with static, raising the hairs on Sakumo's arms. Screeching white lightning burst to life in the palm of Kakashi's hand, forks of light crawling between his clawed fingers. It flashed bright-dark-bright in the dusk, twisting in a loose circle around his son. For a second, the jutsu seemed stable.

The lightning flared blue. Kakashi's eyes widened.

The streaks of electricity collapsed in on themselves with an ear-shattering boom. The explosive release of energy threw Kakashi back off his feet, hurtling back toward a boulder. Sakumo flash-stepped behind him, catching his son a split second before impact. Sakumo held the younger ninja until he got his feet beneath him, then the jounin drew Kakashi's hands closer for inspection, ignoring the annoyed sound he made.

The burns turned out to be minor, not even worthy of a trip to the hospital. Kakashi had apparently gotten much better at directing the energy from his more violent failures. "Still can't get it to solidify?" Sakumo asked.

Kakashi made a noise of pure frustration. Sakumo winced. "Come on," he said, motioning to the veranda. "Let's get some ointment on those burns."

A few minutes and the last of their bandages later, Kakashi's wounds were treated. The earlier silence had once again fallen between them, thick and muffling. Sakumo took a breath. "So," he ventured. "Do you know what went wrong?"

"No." Kakashi stared straight ahead, mind obviously whirling behind his charcoal eyes.

"Ahh... I see." They lapsed again into uncomfortable silence. Sakumo fiddled with the hilt of the tanto sheathed between his shoulder blades. It was a nervous habit he thought he'd broken as a chuunin, but life as the single parent brought it out at odd moments. "I hear you met with the Raikage today," he tried again, forcibly injecting some cheer into his voice. "What did he want?"

At his words, Kakashi seemed to hunch in on himself, looking much smaller than his twelve years. It was not the reaction Sakumo had expected. Generally, the honor of reporting directly to the Raikage was given to higher-ranked members of a squad. Sakumo had assumed it would be good news.

Sakumo hesitated, then placed a tentative hand on his son's shoulder. Kakashi would probably shove him off with another eye roll, but he'd missed having this closeness with his son. Even just the past few weeks had been difficult.

Surprisingly, Kakashi leaned into the warmth.

They sat there quietly, listening to the quiet chirp of crickets and the low, omnipresent moan of wind through the mountains.

"Kakashi..."

"Dad."

Sakumo shifted minutely, turning his gaze down to his son. Kakashi stared out into night, features swallowed by the growing darkness. "Not tonight."

Sakumo paused for a brief moment. He moved his scarred hand from Kakashi's shoulder to his head, resting his fingers in his son's soft hair. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

Father and son remained there late into the night, watching stars twinkle in and out behind the twisting curtain of fog.