Chapter four

I've worked and reworked this chapter. (Like hours and hours of work...about eight, I think.) I'm still not completely happy with it, but it's got a lot of differences--and hopefully improvements!--from the first draft.

Enjoy!

Chapter 4
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Kakashi was not surprised that Sasuke displayed the same lack of finesse he always had. Sasuke must have been more bothered than he’d estimated for him to charge like that, telegraphing his moves and not bothering with strategy. Kakashi dodged, still on the defensive. Sasuke swept past and skidded to a halt, kicking up dirt. Pebbles spattered to the ground. Sasuke never had been good with strategy. He had power and skill and natural talent, but he didn’t think far enough ahead. Like that, for instance. Sasuke came at him again and his knuckles grazed Kakashi’s forearm--it would have been a painful punch, had it not landed at a bad angle. Kakashi was now free to counter. He grabbed Sasuke’s outstretched arm and threw him over his hip. Sasuke was halfway across the clearing before he recovered. Kakashi watched Sasuke crash into the bushes and push himself up, out, and into another straightforward attack.

Really, Sasuke would have done better with a kunai. Sasuke had grown tall over the years, but Kakashi was still taller and heavier. Better to wound or disable from a distance before going head to head. Sasuke’s eyes slid into Sharingan. Kakashi removed his hitai-ate. His eye felt warm as he tracked Sasuke’s next move. He hoped Sasuke had enough sense not to really try to kill him. There was a difference between a friendly--angry--spar and attempted murder. Then again, at their respective levels, a sparring accident could kill. It wouldn’t be hard to mask less-than-friendly intentions under the guise of an accident. Kakashi shrugged, neatly avoiding a flurry of shuriken. At least he’d get a decent workout.

A couple hours later, Kakashi had Sasuke sunk into the ground and pinned under a large rock. Kakashi could feel a migraine nipping at him from Sharingan overuse, and he suspected the pinched look on Sasuke’s face had less to do with losing than strained optical nerves and overheated chakra pathways.

“You’ve improved, Sasuke.”

Kakashi sat on the boulder and was gratified to hear a small grunt in return. Really, he had gotten better. Kakashi could feel the tingle of Sasuke’s chakra even now, helping stay the stone’s weight from crushing him. He had to have been downright economical with his power to have that much left.

“You even surprised me once or twice. I didn’t think Orochimaru could create snakes from lightning.”

Sasuke didn’t reply.

Kakashi heard a hitch in Sasuke’s breathing. Hmm. Probably time to let him up, though Sasuke could simply have been nervous about revealing an original jutsu. Kakashi hopped down and pushed the rock off Sasuke. It had been carefully balanced, both on the physical ground and with chakra. If Sasuke had been able to shift the rock, he’d have crushed his torso at best. He might have even killed himself that way, although the ANBU lurking in the trees would have gotten him to the hospital fast enough that he wouldn’t die. Probably. Kakashi wasn’t sure who was on duty, but not all the ANBU took their orders seriously. Impartial guards didn‘t exist, not with the village still healing from Sasuke‘s attack.

As soon as the boulder was off, the ground around Sasuke cracked and crumbled. He pulled himself out of the hole and dusted himself off as best as he could. Kakashi wondered if a talk about wardrobe choice was in order. Wearing white was just a stupid move. Sasuke would never be able to get all the dirt out of his shirt now…or could he? Kakashi watched as Sasuke activated a strange, low-powered lightning jutsu. All the dirt fell out of his clothes.

Kakashi looked closely and smothered a smile. Fine hairs of static electricity had pushed all the dirt out from the fibers of the cloth. The energy dissipated in a huge crackle when Sasuke reached for a kunai jammed in the ground. Sasuke shook his hand and rubbed it. Kakashi could see he fought the urge to suck on the finger that had touched the metal. His hair was starting to float upward, still full of static. Obviously Sasuke hadn’t polished this jutsu enough. Kakashi filed the idea away for later-- maybe the energy could be encouraged to go up into a cloud, like real lightning?

No matter. Kakashi was impressed with Sasuke’s finely controlled technique. This was nothing like what was needed for a fireball, or even the Chidori. Sasuke had taken his normal brute force and split it infinitely to be able to remove grains of dirt without destroying his clothing. Kakashi wondered where he had learned it. He tried not to think about what practicing the jutsu involved. No need to think about Sasuke disintegrating his shirt by accident. Really.

“So,” said Kakashi. “Is that jutsu an Uchiha original as well? It must have taken a lot of practice.”

He stroked his chin thoughtfully and tried not to act too interested.

Sasuke stiffened and started to gather more stray kunai from the ground. He made a careful circle around Kakashi, never exposing his back. He also never looked up.

Kakashi sighed. Picking up kunai was a fair enough excuse not to meet his gaze. Kakashi chose to let it rest. He started looking for shuriken, always mindful of Sasuke’s position and never leaving the inner circle of space Sasuke was avoiding. After a few tense minutes, Kakashi relaxed inside and allowed his back to face Sasuke. Hopefully, giving Sasuke the tactical advantage would help him to talk about whatever it was he was dancing around. Kakashi had a sneaking suspicion he knew what it was.

They piled up the weapons and sorted through them. They were figuring out whose were which when Sasuke started talking. Kakashi silently approved. It was smart of him to wait for the ANBU watchers to disband. Kakashi had known, a short while before, when Sasuke had decided to talk. He had straightened up and slowly stopped circling Kakashi. Keeping casual until the ANBU left had been the hard part.

“You’ve seen the reports, I assume.”

Sasuke’s voice was subdued, the lack of inflection telling Kakashi that he was trying--and failing--to put distance between his words and himself.

“I’ve read all the reports. You mean the prison ones, yes?”

The air under the trees was heavy and green. Kakashi listened to Sasuke drawing it in deeply. Kakashi swiped a rag at the kunai in his hand.

“Yes. You know what they did to me.”

Sasuke stopped for a moment.

“What they felt they had to do. It wasn’t …directed at me personally, really.”

Kakashi could tell that Sasuke had been working this thought over for a long time, forcing logic onto it and fighting his instincts. He dropped the kunai into his pouch with a clank. He leafed over the reports in his head. Sasuke had been chained and sealed and drained of all but the smallest amounts of chakra. The administration had found him to be too difficult to handle otherwise.

Kakashi continued to wipe down kunai. He noticed Sasuke had stopped. Or had never started. At this very moment, he wasn’t sure if he should encourage him to talk, or, for that matter, if he even wanted Sasuke to continue. He knew for certain now what Sasuke was thinking. Kakashi half-wished that he hadn’t said anything in the first place.

A bird flapped noisily nearby and Sasuke startled, throwing a kunai in its direction. A vaguely guilty expression flitted across his face.

“Don’t worry,” said Kakashi. “You didn’t hit it.”

Sasuke frowned.

“I should have,” he said. “All that time…there. I fine-tuned my physical control too, not just my chakra.”

Sasuke hunkered down over the pile of weapons again.

Kakashi was quiet for a few more minutes. He watched the leaves in the canopy up above moving and showing off little bits of the sky now and again. Then his attention fixed on a beetle. It trundled along in the dirt, coming from one direction and going another, its hard shell shining even in the diffuse light on the forest floor.

“Time to go,” Kakashi said.

He stood and stretched. He shoved the rest of the weapons into a different bag.

“We’ll take care of these when we get back.”

Sasuke got up and fell in behind Kakashi. Kakashi didn’t like having Sasuke at his back, but Sasuke literally wouldn’t move if he was back to anyone.

Before Kakashi had taken a single step toward home, Sasuke cleared his throat. Kakashi didn’t turn around.

“When they came to take me out of my cell, at the end,” Sasuke’s voice faded a bit. He coughed.

“At the end, they actually looked inside and nobody, not one of them, could figure out how the walls had gotten scorched.”

The old Sasuke would have been smug about this, Kakashi knew. This Sasuke, though…this Sasuke was just tired. A little bitter and, though he would never admit it, sad. Kakashi knew he had suffered. He tried to put it out of his mind.

Both men were silent on the way back to Kakashi’s apartment.


Kakashi’s dreams resonated with Sasuke’s painfully concise footnote about his prison sentence. He dreamt of dark places, of past capture and interrogation. White Fang. He dreamed of his time in ANBU. A dizzying maze of corridors and shadows and silence. Flickering torches everywhere. The heavy footfalls of pursuing nin. Dripping water echoed. Or was it blood? Moldering stone passageways blocked by the dead. Obito. Konoha burned and burned. The ashes stung his eye as Sasuke left for Sound. He had to stay quiet! No one could know he was here. He ground his teeth every time a patrol approached. This time, this time the enemy nin would kill him. His fingernails broke on the stones and still he clawed. He had to get out of this place.

When Kakashi awakened, covered in sweat and biting back any noise he might have made, he had a thought, spurred on by the dangerous place the dreams had left him. He and Sasuke could build their own house. They would be safe there. He considered getting out of bed and waking Sasuke up, but he was still trembling from what he’d seen. He had to be rock steady with Sasuke, couldn’t show weakness. The house would keep. Sasuke, sleeping on the couch, could wait. Kakashi lay waiting for the predawn light to turn into day, counting each breath, making them as deep and steady as possible.

And, even as he heard Sasuke tossing and turning, gasping for air, waking and falling back asleep, Kakashi stayed as still and quiet as he could and made no move to comfort him. It wasn’t his place. Sasuke could deal with his own nightmares, and Kakashi would tend to his.

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Tada! Chapter five is coming sometime in the future. I don't think I even want to look at this story any more today, hahaha. (My brain is spinning around from so much editing.)

Later!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights remain with its original creator, Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit from writing these stories.