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Kakashi-sensei can be difficult to read. Because of the mask and headband covering most of his face, sure, but also because of the way he moves. Or- doesn’t move? He’s still, the way the really good shinobi tend to be. When he moves, it’s less like he’s moving in order to accomplish a goal and more like moving is the goal. Measured. Economical.
It’s how Iruka-sensei moves when he means business, how Naruto wishes he could move. Sasuke and Sakura can pull it off a little bit, once in a while when they’re at their best. Never on purpose though, but Kakashi-sensei does it all the time, like it’s second nature. Naruto thinks maybe he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. It’s so cool.
It also makes his body language sort of a poor indicator of what’s going on with him sometimes. Like now.
He’s walking perfectly normally, bantering back and forth with Sakura. The tone of his voice is level and cheerful, his pace the same as it’s been all morning. Still, Naruto can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. He’s not sure why, though, and he has nothing to go on to support that observation other than intuition, so he puts it away for now and goes back to nagging Sasuke, trying to elicit a reaction other than a scoff.
It lights up in his mind again when they stop for lunch. Kakashi-sensei steps off into the trees to do his business, and obviously none of them are going to follow him, but he’s gone for kind of a long time.
Naruto’s too busy digging into his food to comment on it just yet, but he sees Sasuke glance periodically into the treeline where their sensei had vanished, and Sakura turn her attention there and stare. Definitely a long time.
But then he comes back, seemingly no worse for wear. He makes quick work of his lunch, then sits in a neat seiza and reads for the few minutes it takes the rest of them to finish. Naruto wonders how long he’s practiced, to be able to eat without letting them see his face at all.
When they’re all ready to go, he stands in a single smooth motion. Normal. Offering no indicator that anything’s different than usual. In any capacity. So Naruto lets it go. Again.
Their pace doesn’t slow at all as afternoon fades into evening. If anything, it picks up. Kakashi-sensei stops responding to Sakura eventually, either getting bored of her or annoyed, and she switches to bothering Naruto instead. The whole time, their sensei leads the way back toward the Village Hidden in the Leaves with efficient purpose, like he’s in a hurry to make it back home, or at least eager.
Which maybe makes it odd that they stop for the night earlier than usual. It’s just after sunset, the dark sky still streaked with bits of orange and pink, when Kakashi picks out a good spot in the shadow of a small hill where they can make camp.
They all drop their bags, then Sakura goes to get water from a nearby stream and Naruto and Sasuke run off into the trees to collect firewood. When they get back, sensei has spread out everyone’s bedrolls and created a little rock lined hollow in the dirt for a fire. He lights it with a seal, then takes out the metal cookpot from his bag and gives them a quick lesson on field cooking, his voice a little flatter than usual.
When the start of some stew is simmering away, Kakashi-sensei steps back from the fire and drops into a stretch, sitting on his knees with his body folded forward and his arms out in front of him, sort of like he’s bowing. Naruto glances at Sakura and Sasuke just to extra confirm that their sensei is definitely being weird, then they all three copy the pose. Apparently they’re stretching now.
They hold the pose for so long Naruto starts to think that maybe Kakashi forgot to finish the set, then he steps up and back into a plank. They hold that one for a long time too, long enough that Naruto’s arms start to shake, but Kakashi-sensei is perfectly still, breathing deep, focused like he doesn’t even notice they’re here. Finally, he pushes up into a lunge, and from there it’s a proper flow of warm up stretches. Each one lasts longer than Naruto’s used to—it seems like sensei’s deciding when to move on through whim instead of any actual count—but none of them are longer than those first two.
Dinner marks their stopping point. Kakashi-sensei steps out of his pose, totally nonchalant, and serves four bowls of stew. It smells pretty good, for road food.
“Why did we do a warm up right before we go to bed?” Sakura asks, when they’re all sitting around the fire eating. The three of them are eating, at least. Kakashi-sensei is kind of just holding his bowl, taking a bite here and there but mostly just ignoring it. It’s hard to tell, between the fire light and the way he’s all covered up, but Naruto thinks he might be a bit pale.
“Because I decided to,” he says cryptically. That’s all he says. Naruto doesn’t know why he’s like that.
He finishes his bowl a little bit after the three of them do. Naruto and Sakura draw the short straw for dish duty, which at least means someone else has to take first watch. He would rather do first watch than dishes, but he knows Sakura wouldn’t. He grabs the pot and the bowls and and they jog off to the stream. It’s not like they really need two people to wash five dishes, but since they’re supposed to go everywhere with a partner anyway, it does make it faster. He takes the pot and she starts on the bowls, and they meet in the middle.
They finish pretty quick, and he shakes the dishes aggressively in the air to get some of the water off. “Kakashi-sensei’s acting weird, right?” he throws out as they stand up to go back.
“Do you think he’s okay?” she asks as soon as he’s done talking, like she’s just been waiting for someone else to bring it up. He’s glad he’s not the only one who noticed.
Naruto hesitates. Kakashi-sensei’s not acting like anything’s wrong, he’s just being weird. He scrunches his nose. “Probably?”
Sakura thinks it over for a minute. “Should we ask him?”
He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to bother him if it’s nothing, and he doesn’t have any evidence yet that there’s anything bad going on. “Nah, let’s just wait and see.”
When they get back to camp, Kakashi-sensei is sitting in that neat seiza again, except hands which would normally be clasped in his lap are instead pressed flat to his lower belly like he’s in pain. It’s subtle, barely noticeable except in the way he doesn’t move his arms at all when he looks up at their return.
“You three get some sleep,” Kakashi declares. “I’ll take the first watch tonight.”
Naruto almost asks if he’s okay, but he’s the one who just said to leave it alone, so he just gives him a thumbs up and flops down on his bedroll, determined to get as much sleep as he can before he’s tagged in for watch.
It’s pitch dark when Sasuke wakes him up for his turn, nudging his arm with his foot. Naruto sputters, slapping at Sasuke’s leg to make him stop, and sits up.
“You have last watch,” Sasuke says, voice low.
“Yeah yeah, I’m doing it,” Naruto grumbles, rubbing sleep from his eyes and packing up his bedroll.
“Good,” Sasuke says, then goes back to his own bedroll. His breath evens out a couple minutes later, asleep.
Naruto stirs the fire with a stick, adding a handful of kindling and another log to keep it burning through to the morning. The worst part about being on watch is that there’s nobody to talk to. He sighs and walks a couple loops around the edge of their camp. Last watch isn’t that bad, actually. Neither is first watch. It’s the two middle watches that suck the worst, because then you don’t get to have an uninterrupted night of sleep.
Kakashi-sensei wakes up right as the sky is starting to go pinkish grey with the impending dawn. He wraps his arms around his middle, curling up around his legs and staying really still for a couple seconds. Naruto can hear him taking deep breaths. Then he sits up.
Naruto can’t be sure if he was actually pale last night or if it was just a trick of the light, but he’s definitely pale now. He seems to take a moment to gather himself, then he stands and walks slowly off into the trees, pausing briefly on the way to grab something from his pack.
The lightening sky lets him see just enough that he can notice a patch of dark and shiny on Kakashi-sensei’s bedroll, the burgundy color of wet blood on the grey cloth. He frowns. He doesn’t get a chance to investigate further though, because Kakashi-sensei comes back before he can decide if he should. He’s pretty sure he sees him looking, but he doesn’t mention it. He just rolls up the cloth and looks at the sky, probably judging how long is left before they’ve got to get moving for the day.
“Think I should start on breakfast?” sensei asks, turning back to Naruto.
He thinks sensei should explain why there’s blood in his bedding, actually, but that’s not really his business right now, so he nods. “I can wake those two up for you!” he offers, grinning.
Naruto doesn’t have to see Kakashi-sensei’s face to know his returning smile is wan. He can hear it in his voice. “Sure, but if they’re mad about getting their sleep cut short, it’s on you.”
But that’s permission, so he leaps up and grabs the ends of his teammates’ blankets and yanks them off. Sakura shrieks, bolting up to try to take hers back. He dodges out of her path, only to trip over Sasuke’s outstretched leg.
“Damn it,” he whines from the ground as Sakura grabs her blanket and smacks him upside the head as she storms off.
Sasuke casts him a smug look and he starts packing up. Naruto sticks his tongue out at him. Kakashi-sensei huffs fondly over by the fire, almost a laugh, shaking his head.
There’s tea with breakfast. Another point in favor of their theory that something’s up. There’s always breakfast when they’re travelling; sensei is annoyingly persistent about it being the most important meal of the day and keeping their strength up for the mission. Tea is a luxury on the road though, or at least it has been so far.
Kakashi doesn’t join in their conversation while they eat. Nor does he eat himself. He just sits there silently, once more exercising that impossible skill of somehow not letting them see his face even though he’s literally drinking a cup of tea right in front of them.
“Are you okay, sensei?” Sakura says suddenly, ducking out of the way of Sasuke’s swipe at Naruto. Naruto pauses in his quest to steal Sasuke’s bread. He wasn’t going to ask, but that doesn’t mean he won’t listen in for the answer.
Kakashi-sensei’s visible eye curves in a smile. “I’m fine, Sakura-chan.”
That seems like both a lie and the truth. Naruto can tell something’s different today than usual, he saw the blood, but sensei also isn’t really acting like he’s… hurt, or anything.
Sakura seems to feel the same way, because she frowns for a second, then nods. “Okay,” she accepts, still sounding a bit skeptical.
Kakashi-sensei sets the same quick, steady pace today as yesterday, but now he isn’t maintaining it quite as effortlessly. His steps are still the same efficient motion as always, but stiffer. More awkward, like maybe moving hurts. Every so often, he vanishes into the trees with a signal not to follow, and they just have to stand around for a couple minutes until he reappears.
The three of them discuss it on and off between other conversations as they walk. Sakura’s concerned. Sasuke is pretending like he’s above caring. Naruto is… somewhere in the middle. Because obviously he knows Kakashi-sensei is capable of managing whatever the situation is by himself, but sometimes it’s nice to have a little help. If sensei trusts them to help him, that is.
They start to slow down a bit as the morning wears on. As Kakashi seems to get tired. Though Naruto thinks achy might be more likely, honestly, with the stiff way he’s moving. There are only so many days that can be cut off the journey by hurrying though, and they’re still making decent time.
He figures it out a little before lunch. He and Sakura and Sasuke have fallen back a couple meters to discuss the matter where Kakashi hopefully won’t hear them. Up ahead, Kakashi-sensei presses both hands against his lower back below his pack and twists his torso, stretching slow like he’s sore and doesn’t want to make it worse, and Naruto feels his face flush bright red as a memory clicks together in his head.
It had been a few months ago, one of the only times he’s ever not shown up to classes. He’d stayed home because he woke that morning with his bed covered in blood and his body aching, and he knew what was happening but he didn’t know what to do about it, so he’d just sort of... panicked and not done anything.
Iruka-sensei had knocked on his door in the evening and he almost hadn’t answered, afraid of the embarrassment. The prospect of help had been too tempting though, and he’d opened the door and explained what the problem was.
It had been exactly as embarrassing as he’d feared. Maybe even worse. But then Iruka-sensei had gone out and come back with supplies and stretches and painkillers and extremely awkward attempts at support, and it had been worth it.
He’d wondered at the time, though he hadn’t asked, how Iruka-sensei had known those things. He doesn’t exactly spend time with many women, after all. Not that men can’t know, of course. Naruto knows. But Iruka-sensei isn’t like that, so.
He wonders now if he’d asked Kakashi-sensei. He recognizes that stretch, and some of the ones from last night too now that he’s thinking about it. And it makes sense, the way he’s been acting.
“I know what’s going on with sensei,” he declares in a triumphant whisper.
“What?” Sasuke and Sakura both pounce.
“It’s- well, you know!” he says, looking pointedly at Sakura and gesturing meaningfully in the air. He knows she’ll know what he’s talking about.
“Huh?” she says. Her eyebrows scrunch in confusion as she watches his hands. Then they bounce upward in understanding. “Oh.” She looks at Kakashi-sensei up ahead, evaluating. “How do you know?”
Naruto crosses his arms defensively. “I just do.”
“What are you talking about?” Sasuke presses.
“Girl stuff,” Sakura brushes off immediately, then pauses. She continues, almost to herself, “Uh. I mean. Oh, huh, that’s weird.”
Naruto shoves her. “Don’t say stuff like that!”
She stumbles a few steps away with the momentum of being pushed, then comes right back and kicks him hard in the shin. “I wasn’t trying to be mean, you jerk!” she yells.
Kakashi-sensei turns around to check on them. Sasuke steps back, holding his hands up innocently.
“I didn’t do it,” he says.
“I see that,” sensei replies. Naruto winces. He sounds impatient. And tired.
“Sorry sensei,” Naruto and Sakura say at the same time, genuinely contrite for once.
Kakashi sighs and keeps walking. Naruto makes eye contact with Sakura behind him, a plan to help their sensei out forming between them without any words needed. Sasuke might not know what they’re talking about, but he’s smart. Hopefully he’ll catch on to the fact that Naruto and Sakura are being extra nice to Kakashi-sensei and follow suit.
They stop for lunch not quite an hour later. Kakashi-sensei lies down on the grass with his legs bent and his arms around his middle and shuts his eyes. He’s not asleep, Naruto can tell he’s still listening to them, but what’s visible of his face is pale and pinched.
Naruto sits several meters away from Sasuke, determined not to start any arguments to annoy their sensei for once. He remembers how the low grade all over misery makes every other problem feel more significant. Sakura does the same, and they end up spread out enough that fighting will be more effort than it’s worth.
It’s weird for lunch to be so quiet. Naruto takes another bite and fidgets with the grass. He manages to make about half a bracelet before the pieces unravel in his hands. He looks at Kakashi-sensei.
“Let us know if you need anything, sensei!” he calls.
Sasuke frowns at him, brows furrowed as he continues trying to figure out what everyone else knows that he doesn’t. Sensei gives him a thumbs up, barely moving.
The meadow lapses back into quiet. Naruto finishes his lunch, and then Sasuke and Sakura do, but Kakashi-sensei hasn’t made any move to get up yet, so by unspoken mutual agreement they wait. Naruto starts on a second attempt at his grass bracelet.
It’s a little bit after that that the quiet breaks, maybe ten minutes. Kakashi-sensei lurches to his feet, one arm still tight around his abdomen, and walks off into the trees, waving with the other arm for them to stay where they are.
They can hear the rustle of vegetation for a minute, then the sound of someone throwing up. Naruto grimaces. Sakura frowns, and Sasuke’s eyes go round. It’s not loud, barely loud enough to hear, and he’s not sure if that’s just because they’re already being quiet or if maybe Kakashi-sensei underestimated how close he still is to their little clearing.
He’s trying for pleasant when he comes back, they can all tell, but it just comes across wrung out. Naruto wonders if he brought anything with him for the pain. Probably not, or he would’ve taken it already. At least, he assumes he would’ve. Walking miles and miles and miles with cramps can’t be anyone’s idea of a good time, no matter how eccentric Kakashi-sensei acts.
“We can be done for the day if you need to,” Sakura offers. She’s so much braver than Naruto. He’d hate to be the one pitching that. He would if he felt like he needed to, of course, just... not entirely willingly.
Sasuke glances uncertainly at the sun still high in the sky. Naruto makes a face at him, significantly, and the confused line between his eyebrows returns.
Get with the program already, Naruto thinks.
Sasuke caves. “We can,” he agrees. Good, he’s on the same page as them now. Naruto’s not sure if he’s actually convinced him or if he just feels sorry for how noticeably not feeling well Kakashi is, but a win is a win either way.
Kakashi-sensei shakes his head. “It’s fine. Come on, we’ve still got ground to cover before dark.”
…Or not.
“But sensei-” Naruto starts, gearing up to whine about it to the best of his ability. For the sake of sensei’s wellbeing.
“Enough, Naruto,” Kakashi-sensei snaps, one hand coming up to his brow like he’s trying to pinch out a headache.
Naruto freezes. Sensei sounds actually kind of mad. He swallows.
“Sorry,” he says, gaze briefly dropping.
“We just-” Sakura begins, wringing her hands in her skirt. She doesn’t finish.
So they keep walking. And Kakashi-sensei is fine. He’s obviously uncomfortable, walking with a careful tension, and the pace they’d set this morning is just out of reach, but he’s fine. He’s also silent. So are they, nearly, out of fear of bothering him.
When they’ve been moving for an hour or so, Sasuke grabs Naruto’s arm and crowds into his space. Naruto resists the urge to shove him away, glancing at Kakashi-sensei’s back ahead of them.
“Would you tell me what’s going on already?” Sasuke whispers.
“None of your business,” Naruto mutters back. Just because they’re not currently fighting about anything doesn’t mean he can’t push.
Sasuke rolls his eyes in annoyed resignation.
“He’s bleeding,” Sakura says quietly, inserting herself into the conversation to actually answer his question. Sasuke’s face just goes very worried. She sighs and crosses her arms. “You know, monthlies?” It’s the most scathing tone Naruto’s ever heard her take with Sasuke, which is kind of funny.
For a moment it looks like he doesn’t know. Then the worry in his expression clears into understanding. He looks at Kakashi-sensei thoughtfully.
“But I thought-”
Naruto gets ready to kick him if he says something stupid or rude, but he just stops and shakes his head.
“Nevermind. So what do we do?”
“Nothing,” Sakura shrugs.
Naruto pouts. Sensei made it pretty clear earlier that he doesn’t want their help. “Don’t bug him too much,” he adds.
Sasuke looks unsatisfied with their answers, which is fair enough. Naruto also wishes there was something they could do, not least because he doesn’t like having Kakashi-sensei annoyed at them. They were just trying to make it easier on him! He hadn’t exactly asked them to… but still.
They manage to mostly keep themselves in line the rest of the afternoon. That’s not to say they don’t argue at all, but they do check themselves whenever they get too loud, and restrain themselves to a minimal amount of roughhousing. Which, it turns out, is still kind of a lot of roughhousing. He’s never really noticed how often their conversations get physical, but now he’s looking for it, it seems like it happens all the time.
It ends up being later than usual that they make camp, past sunset and into the full dark. Naruto isn’t sure if Kakashi-sensei is trying to make up the various little time losses they’ve accumulated or if it’s just because there haven’t been many good spots to stop. A little of both, he’d guess, but he doesn’t know Kakashi well enough yet to be sure.
Tonight’s camp is shielded from view by a couple of fallen trees. The three genin roll out their bedding first thing, then set their bags aside. Kakashi-sensei does the same, slower and wincing. When he’s done he sits, seiza perfect again. Naruto wonders if it maybe helps some.
They split off to do their camp chores, same as last night. When they get back from collecting wood, sensei is still sitting exactly where he was, so they put together the fire pit themselves. Sakura comes back a minute or two later with all their canteens freshly filled, and that’s when Kakashi-sensei finally moves, going through what food they’ve rationed to decide what dinner will be.
It’s a different stew this time. Apparently stew is pretty easy to cook over a campfire. Which is fine by Naruto, he likes stew, but Sakura looks like she’s a teeny bit disappointed by the lack of variety. (Sasuke, of course, doesn’t care. He’s above that. Naruto refrains from actually making a face at him, but he is making a face in spirit.)
Kakashi-sensei eats with them tonight. Probably a good thing, since he’d skipped breakfast and lunch. And been throwing up at lunch time. Yeah, definitely a good thing.
Sakura and Sasuke get dish duty this time, and when they get back Sakura’s carrying the cookpot in both hands, water sloshing against the rim each time she takes a step. Kakashi-sensei raises an eyebrow as she sets it back on the fire to warm.
“What are you doing?” Naruto asks. She filled their canteens from the stream earlier, so why is she cleaning the water now?
She turns around and makes a stupid face at him. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
He shrugs dramatically and throws his hands up. She is so annoying sometimes! “I don’t know, why do you think I asked?”
She doesn’t deign to respond to that. Instead, she goes to her pack and takes a long drink from her canteen, then walks over to the edge of the fire’s light and dumps out the rest. She wedges it in the dirt by the fire so that it’s upright, and when the water is hot but not boiling, she fills it up.
She screws on the lid and grabs it, hissing at the heat of the metal on her fingers. “Sensei, catch,” she says, swinging her arm through the air to telegraph her move before she actually throws it.
He does, looking at her questioningly the whole time. “Why?”
“It’s warm,” she says like that’s all the explanation necessary.
Kakashi-sensei nods. “I noticed,” he answers flatly.
Sakura’s nose scrunches. “For the cramps,” she explains, her tone just edging the line of disrespectfully patronizing.
“Ah,” Kakashi says. “That’s not necessary-”
“Yes it is,” Sakura cuts him off, crossing the line.
Kakashi snorts, a surprised little laugh. “Right.” Then, the set of his eye softening a little, “Thanks.”
“I’ll take first watch!” Naruto volunteers.
“Second!” Sakura claims as she lies down on her bedroll.
“Third,” Sasuke says a beat after her.
“And I guess that leaves me with last,” sensei finishes the lineup. His tone says he knows exactly what they’re doing, but he also doesn’t say anything against it.
Naruto finds a seat on the log to watch as everyone shuffles into bed. Kakashi-sensei lies down holding Sakura’s makeshift hot water bottle to his belly, and his breath all leaves him in a punched out sigh of relief, the tension through his whole body loosening a bit. Naruto looks at Sakura across the fire. Good call, he mouths. He hadn’t thought of that. She smiles back with a touch of self satisfaction.
Naruto spends most of his watch tending the fire and looking at the moon as it rises through the break in the canopy above them. It’s almost full tonight, casting enough light for him to see the contours of all the trees pretty clearly. When it’s time to trade off, he goes over to Sakura and shakes her, then goes to his own waiting bed, content in the knowledge that no one’s going to bother him again until it’s actually time to be awake. First and last watches are the best watches, no one can convince him otherwise.
When he does wake, it’s to Sasuke’s voice, dawn sunlight, and the smell of food. It’s the latter of the three that actually gets him moving. Kakashi-sensei’s sat by the fire to cook, something other than stew this time, and Naruto walks up to look over his shoulder, yawning.
“Watcha making?” he asks, shamelessly interrupting whatever conversation he’d been having with Sasuke. Sasuke glares at him.
“Breakfast,” sensei says, pushing him away with the back of his hand to redirect. “Go wake Sakura up.”
“No fun,” Naruto pouts, but he goes. He makes sure to stick his tongue out at Sasuke on the way, and Sasuke pulls a mocking face. One day, he’ll annoy Sasuke into dropping his precious dignity long enough to actually stick his tongue out back, and then he’ll get to lord it over him forever.
He pesters Sakura awake and they all pack up their bedding. It turns into a wrestling match pretty quickly. That lasts for a couple minutes, and for a second Naruto thinks he might actually beat Sasuke, then Kakashi-sensei calls them over to eat. Sakura takes advantage of their distraction to tackle him into the dirt.
She scrambles up and grabs her breakfast before he can retaliate. Sasuke too, which means it’s over because Kakashi-sensei lets them get away with a lot of fighting, but he does expect them to actually eat during meals. Naruto grumbles a bit and shakes the dirt out of his clothes as much as he can, then grabs his bowl too.
“You seem like you’re feeling better,” Sasuke says to Kakashi-sensei after a few minutes. Which is true. There’s a purple smudge under his eye that suggests he maybe didn’t sleep much, but overall he seems somewhat less miserable than he had by the time they’d made camp last night.
Kakashi-sensei shrugs, eye scrunching with a little bit of a smile. “I’m not going to feel better for three or four more days at least, but I appreciate the consideration,” he says. His voice is light, like it doesn’t bother him. It probably doesn’t, much, which is kind of weird to think about. Naruto’s not used to it enough yet to be so relaxed about it.
Sasuke frowns like he doesn’t know what to do with that. “Oh,” he says awkwardly.
“We should get back to the village tonight or tomorrow,” Sakura says, muffled as she takes a bite of her food at the same time.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” sensei says. Then, before she has time to take offense, he continues. “If we make decent time it should be this evening.”
“So you’ll feel better tonight,” Naruto says, picking up Sakura’s train of thought. They’re a bit out of luck in terms of painkillers right now, in the woods, but the same’s probably not true of Kakashi’s home.
Sensei stands flippantly, setting his empty bowl aside and shouldering his backpack. “If you three can keep up with me.”
“More like if you can keep up with us,” Sasuke shoots back. He’s only got the faintest edge to his expression to make it clear that he’s kidding, and Naruto still refuses to like him but he can admit that okay, maybe he’s capable of being funny sometimes.
They do end up making pretty good time through the morning. They’re getting closer and closer to the Village Hidden in the Leaves, each step eating up the miles between them and home, and it’s obvious that the proximity is making them all start to feel a bit antsy in the final stretch.
And Kakashi-sensei does seem like he’s not hurting so much today, or at least not as bothered by it. It’s clear enough that he isn’t totally at a hundred percent, having to put in the effort to move as quickly as they are, but Naruto isn’t sure if that’s really because he’s having that hard of a time or just because they’ve clocked him now and he’s no longer trying to be subtle. Either way, he’s still able to set a pace they all have to work to keep up with, which is so not fair. If it was Naruto, he’d probably want to be curled up in bed crying. With snacks.
He’s going to be that good one day too.
The endless trees and grass are just starting to look more like what he’s used to when they stop for lunch, later than they have any of the previous few days because they are so anxious to be done. Lunch is boring. The food that tastes the best also tends to be the food that goes bad the quickest on the road, so all the fun stuff in their rations has been eaten already and they’re down to stuff that’s just… fine. Nutritious. Yuck.
Kakashi-sensei makes tea again though. They don’t normally make a fire when they stop for lunch, so they all look at him curiously when he does. Which is what alerts Naruto to the fact that he’s really pale, and what skin is visible is sheened lightly with sweat. He offers them all tea too when it’s ready, reserving one full cup and a little extra for himself.
When he’s eaten and the tea is gone, he kicks dirt over the spot where the fire had been and folds himself down into that stretch that looks almost adjacent to a full prostration. His form isn’t as neat as it was a couple days ago, and he’s breathing deep and measured.
“Are you okay?” Naruto asks, a bit hesitantly, after he’s stayed like that for what feels like it’s been quite a while
“Yeah,” Kakashi answers between slow breaths. His discomfort is audible, and Naruto sees Sasuke’s concerned frown and Sakura’s sympathetic wince. “Sorry, I just need five minutes.”
He rises eventually, and moves through the rest of his stretches very carefully. He takes one last deep breath through his mouth when he’s done, eye closed. His throat bobs as he swallows. Then his eye opens and his stance steadies.
He claps his hands. “Alright, let’s get moving!”
The morning went by quick, but the afternoon drags. The landscape looks more familiar with every passing meter and they all know how close and still how far away they are. It gets even worse when the village comes into view in the distance, because he knows they’re almost there.
“This is taking forever,” Naruto groans dramatically when the sky starts to turn orangey gold with the very first traces of sunset, not really feeling homesick as much as he’s buzzing with the anticipation of crossing the finish line.
“We’re about there,” Kakashi-sensei says, his voice a little tight. His arms are wrapped around his middle. They have been for a while now, but he clearly doesn’t want to stop any more than they do. Maybe even less, not when they’re this close. And they’re so close.
They do end up stopping just one more time before they get to the village. Even with how much none of them want to, and Kakashi probably the least of all. Naruto’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually get much choice in the matter, though. It’s a little past dark and there’s no point making camp when the lights of home are rising up to greet them, only maybe another half an hour of walking away, when Kakashi-sensei veers off into the trees all of a sudden.
None of them move to follow him. He hasn’t signalled them not to, but it’s pretty clear that they’re not needed at the moment. It’s made even more so when the sound of their sensei retching drifts over to them through the dark.
He joins them again before too long, his face sheet white and a grimace evident in his expression even covered up. None of them ask how he’s doing this time, because the answer is obvious. “Okay,” he says. He sounds a little bit out of breath. “Let’s go.”
They finally reach the village not even a full hour later. The two shinobi guards at the gate perk up a bit at seeing their group approach. Not that they were unfocused before, of course. One of them makes professional eye contact with Kakashi-sensei.
“I’ll go let the Hokage know to expect your report,” he says, ready to jog off and be messenger.
Naruto pulls a face on reflex and sees it reflected nearly identically on Sakura and Sasuke. There’s no chance that sensei wants to go give a mission report right now.
“No,” Kakashi-sensei says immediately and firmly. They all three look at each other. Called it. “It’s late. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
The guard pauses. Kakashi-sensei crosses his arms.
“Sure,” the guard relents fairly easily. “Your problem, not mine.”
They pass through the gates and out of earshot of the guards. Kakashi-sensei sighs. “Alright, time to get you all home,” he says.
Sasuke looks almost personally offended. “You go home,” he says. It’s not even close to the sharpest tone Naruto has heard him use, but it is up there.
For a second he thinks Kakashi-sensei will ignore that, then he sighs again, tireder. He rubs his face. “Yeah, okay. You sure you can all make it by yourselves?”
“We’re ninjas, not babies,” Sakura brushes him off with a scoff.
“Kinda look like babies from where I’m standing,” he teases.
“Hey!” Naruto says. Sensei is so rude sometimes. If he’s being honest it didn’t quite land, it sounded more exhausted than anything, but still.
“No training tomorrow,” Kakashi-sensei says, before they all separate to go off in their own directions. Naruto hadn’t entirely expected that, but also, he thinks he might’ve been surprised if there was training tomorrow. “I’m planning on sleeping in,” he continues, “so you all might as well take the chance to do it too.”
Then they all head to their respective homes, waving briefly at each other and splitting up into the quiet streets. Naruto unlocks the door of his apartment with nothing short of total relief. He’s never been on such a long, stressful journey before. He didn’t realize how good it would feel to finally be home. He’s got a couple ideas already for how to spend his day off tomorrow, in the wake of a decently successful first mission. But first, sleep sounds great.
He grabs pajamas from his dresser. He takes a short detour to shower when he realizes how grimy he feels, which turns into a longer detour when he realizes he’s hungry too. By the time he flops down on his bed, he’s so ready for this day to be over.
He’s a ninja. For real.
At last.