Chapter Text
Would you know if I thought about you?
Would it even cross your mind?
And ain
′
t it strange, this action from a distance?
Observation lost in time
(Árstíðir - Entangled)
Was it getting darker or was Kakashi losing his eyesight? He wasn’t sure, it could be both. The blood loss was immense, maybe he was losing his consciousness. That would be bad, really bad. He wouldn’t make it back into Konoha. He had to make it back into Konoha. Otherwise, it would be his end. Maybe this was his end. Kakashi wasn’t afraid of dying, so why was he still fighting? Was it his stupid dutifulness that kept him on his legs?
Well, he was hardly keeping upright now. He had already shifted to his wolf form. It was tougher, he could stand injuries better and longer like this. But it didn’t change the size of his bleeding wounds, not really. And the air smelled like rain. It wouldn’t be the worst, to be buried by raindrops. At least that would make it harder for his enemies to find him. Maybe they would think, he was just a dead wolf. Yes, a dead white wolf with a scar over his left eye. A very common sight. He scoffed and tasted blood. Like every ninja, he kept his animal form secret but one didn’t have to be a jounin to figure out whom this wolf corpse belonged to. Or had belonged to. He yapped with grim amusement about his own joke.
At least, he wouldn’t make it easy for them. Or anyone. Or the universe. He would go as far as his limbs would carry him and when they stopped, well, then he would stop. He started to hum a tune in bitter determination. An old Konoha folk tune – his father had sung it when Kakashi couldn’t sleep as a child. From his wolf voice it sounded like a lonely howl. Or not even howl, more a whine. A tiny little whine. Kakashi whined and stumbled forward. Was he going in the right direction? Hopefully. It started raining and the scents were washed away with the water. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t smell. He just walked on and on until he couldn’t anymore.
Kakashi fell to his side, panting and groaning quietly. That was it. He had no idea where he was or how close he was to the village. All he knew was that when he fell asleep now, he would not wake up again. And he was tired, he wouldn’t mind falling asleep. Yet, he didn’t. He tried to keep himself awake. Again, he whined his lonely tune.
Leaves rustled, deep, heavy footsteps. No, not footsteps. Hooves. Kakashi opened his eyes. He couldn’t see much in the dark except of a dark, horse-like shadow. He smelled horse. And home. This horse was a shifter, just like him, and she was from Konoha. He knew because she smelled like home. It was a nice scent. A good last impression of life. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. The horse kneeled down next to him and neighed quietly. If he could get on her back… Kakashi whined. He wouldn’t make it. He didn’t have the energy. His chakra pathways were burned out, his blood was being washed away by the rain. He had done as much as he could. He didn’t have any strength left.
When he woke up, he was in hospital. His arm was linked to an IV; there were at least two machines beeping. He hated these beeping bastards. As soon as he got enough feeling back into his free arm, he started feeling for the stickers on his skin to rip them… ow. Maybe moving wasn’t such a good idea. Kami, he hated hospitals.
A nurse came into the room, and he groaned quietly. What a waste. She was neither young nor pretty. “Kakashi-san,” she said quietly. “Welcome back to the land of the living. This was a close call. How are you feeling?”
“I hate this beeping,” he mumbled. “Can you please turn it off?”
“I know but I’m sorry, I can’t. Not yet. Get better and we can transfer you to a normal unit.”
“Huh.” Kakashi sighed. “Can I at least get ear plugs?”
“Yes, I can do that.” She disappeared and came back with ear plugs not much later. “Do you think, you can put them on yourself?” Kakashi’s whine sounded very much like the sound of his animal form. Which reminded him… “Say, you don’t know a brown mare, do you?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Kakashi-san.” That was the last thing he heard before the ear plugs softened the beeping and he fell back asleep.
When he woke again, he was still hooked to these bloody machines. He sighed and ripped off the connections to his skin. It worked much better now. It didn’t hurt as much but that might have also been because of the painkillers. Of course, it didn’t take long until medic nin came swarming into his room, but they only stayed to turn off the machines. Their eyerolls showed that they knew Kakashi and his antics by now. He also hated painkillers, they made him slow and drowsy, but he knew that he probably didn’t want to exist without them right now.
And his thoughts were still with the horse. He didn’t know how he had gotten on her back. But he must have. Who else would have carried him to the hospital? He owed her his life. And not only that. Kakashi knew. He had been so out of it; he had felt it. The other had felt like home. Like the last piece of a puzzle that had been lost for too long. Like the other side of a medal he had never dared to turn around. Kakashi knew the old folk tales. When someone was on the brink of their death, they would see their life flash before them. Or they would summon their soulmate. Only then were they able to identify their soulmate without a single doubt. Soulmates were rare – well, every shifter had one, but it was difficult to find them. Kakashi hadn’t seen his life flash before him, he had seen a horse. A brown horse. A horse that had saved him. She had to be his soulmate; he had felt it. And he wanted to find her. Not because he was so eager to spend his life with another person – he wasn’t exactly safe company. But he at least wanted to thank her.
He sighed quietly. How did you find someone based on their animal form? Most people kept it secret; shifters were frowned upon in some parts of society. Many humans thought of them as animals, or at least found it weird that some people had an animalistic side to them. With ninjas, the animal form was handled like a secret technique. Because Konoha had so many ninjas, there weren’t many prejudices about shifters but many who were very secretive about their second nature. Kakashi was a jounin with a very high clearing, but it would be hard, even for him, to find out whether someone was human or shifter. And to find a specific one was even harder, if not impossible.
She knew that he was a shifter though. Maybe she would come to find him. Did she feel it too, or had it just been his bloodless brain that had made the connection? Kakashi had very little to work with. The scent he knew but he knew that his wolf nose perceived it differently than his human nose. He wouldn’t be able to make it out when he was in his human form. Also, it had been raining and she had smelled like a wet horse. Her scent would probably be different when she was dry.
So, all he had to go with was a colour. Brown. It had been dark, and he was hardly able to see but for some reason he was absolutely sure that it had been a brown horse. A brown mare. Animal forms matched their human shifter forms in some aspects - like fur colour and scars. And their character in some ways matched their animal form as well. Being a shifter was hereditary, it was rare that a human and a shifter had a shifter child together. So, he was looking for a brown-haired horsewoman? And he would start looking in the ninja clans, most of which were shifters.
The Hatakes were wolves, they always had been, just as the Inzukas were hounds. The Naras shifted into deer form and the Uchihas were cats. Of course, no one knew for certain, and it was possible that some clan members were shifters and others weren’t… but that was the unspoken knowledge every ninja was privy to. The Hyuugas probably were shifters too but none of their fighting techniques forced them to shift into their animal form and everyone who had seen a Hyuuga shift had his knowledge sealed on first notice. So, no one knew. But everyone knew about the Sarutobis.
So, the Hyuugas could protentially be a clan of horse shifters? It didn’t really suit them, Kakashi sighed. And it would be close to impossible to get close to any Hyuuga woman without asking for her hand in marriage first. Maybe he should try his luck with the Senjus… but there weren’t many left in Konoha. Their most well-known member, princess Tsunade, hadn’t been seen in the village for years. Kakashi could totally imagine her as a horse shifter. She certainly wasn’t his soulmate though; that, he was sure of. The Akimichis were the only clan left which might house horse shifters. Though, it had been a rather lean horse and didn’t feature the typical Akimichi characteristic of, well, being overweight.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember. She had kneeled down next to him. He had felt her warmth. He had smelled her scent. And he felt good, for a moment. At home. And then… nothing. It had to be a good person. She had seen him, a wolf, her natural predator, dying on the ground and she hadn’t even hesitated. Kakashi would have hesitated… if he had been a horse.
Guy came to visit him. Even Tenzou showed up once and Kakashi asked him for a few scrolls from the library. Heavily sealed, classified scrolls. Having an active ANBU friend had its perks. He learned that shifter forms were hereditary as well – a dog parent and a wolf parent might either have a dog child, a wolf child or a wolfdog child. There was one rare exception… if the shifter forms of the parents differed a lot, their child could turn out to not be a shifter at all or shift into something completely different from their parents. He looked into the files of deceased shinobi of the past whose shifting forms had been made public. None of the Konoha clans had ever housed a horse shifter. There was not much more he could do from his hospital bed.
As soon as he was able to walk around again, he discharged himself, climbed out of the window and made his way through the village. He had decided to start at the Nara clan. Deer were the most similar to horses from any of the known shifter forms of Konoha.
There was one problem: Naras didn’t like non-Nara folks on their premises. It wasn’t like Kakashi couldn’t break into the wards…the Naras were smart, especially their clan head Shikaku. Kakashi respected the man, and he didn’t exactly want to get on his bad side. But if he wanted to visit the clan’s estate, he would have to apply for an official invite… and for that he would have to give a reason.
Naras did leave their premises though. Some of them worked as shinobi, some had to leave to collect herbs or get other ingredients from all kinds of places. Many of them were regulars at the Konoha library. So Kakashi decided to stroll around the village and rest in the trees near the entrance to their estate. Like this, he would be able to get an idea about who belonged to the Nara clan.