Chapter Six is now done!

Whew! I'm tired now! I apologize for all the delays I've had lately. I also apologize in advance for the lame cliffhanger. (Man, I hope I didn't miss some craptacular error just because I wanted to put this thing up now, before bed, instead of tomorrow.)

Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 6

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When the message came from the Hokage, Kakashi couldn’t believe it. He looked at the paper several times, just to be sure. It was a mission. A bona fide out-of-the-village mission. No other person or group of people could do it as he could. Despite his ongoing responsibility over Sasuke, he had to take it. He had a few days’ advance notice to figure out what--and how--to tell Sasuke. For a moment, Kakashi imagined not telling him. He tapped the paper against his leg. He looked around. His bedroom door was closed, but he shut the window, just in case.

Sasuke was more walled off than before he‘d left. He didn’t seem to trust anyone right now; didn’t trust Naruto to let him live, didn’t trust Kakashi not to hand him back to ANBU, and he certainly didn’t trust anyone he’d never had faith in beforehand. Kakashi snorted. If you could call it faith. He sat on his bed. He tried to figure out how to upset Sasuke the least. Keeping an eye on Sasuke had to be the most difficult job he’d ever done. He didn’t like babysitting, and that was exactly what his orders were. Keep Sasuke out of trouble. Try not to make him worse. Don’t kill him. Try not to let him kill you. (And really, it was unfair because Kakashi was good at killing, maybe even great at it.) Kakashi suspected that no one had planned for circumstances which would force him to abandon Sasuke for another mission. His grip on the notice tightened. The paper wrinkled up and he smoothed it out against his thigh. A darker part of him thought this mission was a test. It seemed a bit convenient.

Honestly, Kakashi didn’t know what good he could do for Sasuke, what good he might have already done. He didn’t know Sasuke well, and he fumbled just as often as he succeeded in handling him. Maybe this new mission was a better use of his skills. The village needed its strongest out there doing missions, not hovering over an ex missing-nin who might or might not improve enough to be trusted with ninja work again. Still, he felt a twinge when he rehearsed his explanation and tried to imagine how Sasuke would react. Kakashi sighed. No one seemed to have taken into account that Sasuke was a singularly difficult roommate and ward. Even now, Kakashi caught himself sweeping the room for signs that Sasuke was spying on him. This would be a very bad time for that, not that there was ever a good one. Kakashi had caught Sasuke at it occasionally, but he was certain there were more instances when he hadn’t.



A week after they’d broken from their apartment hunt, Kakashi prepared to leave on the new mission. He’d had a day to think about what to tell Sasuke. Sasuke wasn’t an idiot. He’d know what Kakashi was preparing for the minute the traveling packs came out. Kakashi decided this was one of those rare times that honesty really was the best policy. He didn’t know what it would take to keep Sasuke on an even keel, so to speak, but he was prepared to tell him everything he could and, perhaps, a few things he shouldn’t. Kakashi dragged his packs out into the living room. He dropped them on the floor, startling Sasuke out of the kitchen.

“I’ve got a mission tomorrow,” said Kakashi. “It’s not going to last too long. A few days at the most.”

Sasuke looked at the partly loaded bags. He didn’t seem very surprised, but there was something not quite right with his expression. There was a certain tightness in his eyes and the way he held his jaw. Kakashi tried to soften what he had to say.

“I can’t take you with me. You know that. But you’ll be able to stay here, and it‘s only the usual four-man ANBU squad.”

The knowledge that they would have to seal Sasuke’s chakra hung in the air between them. Kakashi suddenly found himself unable to look into Sasuke’s bright gaze. He cleared his throat and tried to pretend that, even now, the ANBU were not watching. He lowered his voice accordingly.

“I’ll tell you about the mission, if you want to know.”

It wasn’t much consolation, but it was all the reassurance he had to give.

Sasuke sat on the couch. Kakashi pulled up a chair in his line of sight, blocking the mission packs from view. He gave him a moment.

“Well? You want to hear about it?”

Sasuke nodded. Kakashi sighed inside. He hoped that, with this knowledge, Sasuke would be able to relax some. There was nothing either of them could do to prevent Kakashi leaving, and even if he could have, Kakashi didn’t think he would. He ignored a prickle of guilt. This was an important mission and he had to do it. Sasuke would be fine. He’d be fine.



Kakashi left for four days at the height of summer. He made his way through the waving veldt of Grass country and into Earth. He was doing surveillance and groundwork for a further, later mission, which meant he spent a lot of time hidden in trees and behind boulders, waiting to see what he needed to see. Kakashi made judicious use of his Sharingan and mapped particular places of interest, but mostly he endured the tedium of waiting. If you discounted the possibility of being found out, it was boring work. Hot, too. Kakashi felt sweat trickling down his neck. He didn’t wipe it away. There were too many people around now. It looked like the background information for this mission was accurate--they were building some sort of military installation. Even at night he was careful to limit his movements. During the day he held perfectly still for hours if need be. Kakashi was perched in an elm today, giving him a great vantage point. It was almost comfortable standing with one arm wrapped around the trunk.

Still, knowing he couldn’t move put an extra sting in every fly landing on him, every drop of sweat that rolled into his eye, and every piece of grit that worked its way through his clothes to chafe him. Each urge his body gave him was magnified. He had to distract himself. Fortunately, he had plenty of practice at passing the time. His Sharingan tracked the movements of the people and supplies and he was careful to keep a firm grip on the tree, but that left most of his mind free to think.

Kakashi thought about music for a little bit, as someone passed by, whistling. He thought about what a pleasure it would be to put him out of his tone deaf misery. Someone else did it for him, smacking the offender across the back of the head and into silence. Kakashi rolled his eye. No ninja worth his salt would allow someone to hit him like that. The whistler was probably a civilian.

Thinking about civilians made him think about the disastrous apartment hunt…which led him to Sasuke. Once he came to Sasuke, he couldn’t not think about him. Kakashi wondered how Sasuke was getting along without him. He imagined him doing all the sorts of things he normally did: housework, cooking, reading. How was Sasuke coping with a lack of people to glare at? Not that there weren’t people there, but the ANBU weren’t exactly a visible presence. Scowling would be a nice distraction from the hard truths of house arrest, though. Kakashi worried, just for a moment, that house arrest was too close to what Sasuke had endured in prison. He tried to think of other things because, in the end, Sasuke had endured, had survived.

The afternoon passed slowly, and Kakashi found himself in a strangely languorous state. He felt, distantly, that he should be more alert, but he couldn’t quite force himself into it. A slight breeze relieved the worst of the heat, and he’d long since grown accustomed to the bark pressed into his flesh. He had finished his Sharingan work at this location. Now he just needed to wait until dark, when he could slip away and make paper copies of his surveillance for the Hokage. After that, he’d be free to make his way home. This mission was turning out to be almost relaxing.

Kakashi started thinking about missions. Did Sasuke have a lot of mission experience? He had had a fairly average life as a genin, despite his skill and genius. There were a few standouts, but mostly it had been catching pets and pruning hedges. Who knew what Sasuke had done, what he had experienced after he’d left Konoha? It was obvious that he didn’t have enough of a foundation in general ninja work. That was the point of being a genin: to establish oneself in the working ninja world. Sasuke had gone haring off almost before he’d started, and he had come back with an aptitude for mayhem and little else. A ninja so one-sided couldn’t fit well into the current society. If there had been a war on then yes, Sasuke could have been a valuable tool, but these days...he was worse than useless. Kakashi felt himself getting angry. The whole situation should have been preventable. Sasuke shouldn’t have been allowed to leave. Kakashi should have kept better watch on him, should have sat on him harder, should have seen that their last confrontation wasn’t enough, that it wasn’t something that could keep Sasuke away from Orochimaru and his brother and all the other dark things he secreted away. Kakashi should have kept Sasuke safe, in Konoha.

Kakashi eased his grip on the tree. Shreds of bark flaked off and fell to the ground below. What a joke. Being a ninja was never safe. It was patently unsafe if you were any good at it, and Sasuke had been the best, the brightest, the most promising of his class. Anger welled up again. After all this time, Kakashi still couldn’t understand why Sasuke didn’t see that Konoha would have helped him. The village was a safety net until its young ninja grew experienced and strong enough to stand on their own. Sasuke had needed its stability desperately, but he was the only one who hadn’t seen that. Maybe he hadn’t been capable. Maybe he still wasn’t.

Kakashi continued to think dark thoughts as twilight fell. A small part of him still kept watch on his surroundings. When there was a minimum of people around, he started flexing the stiffness out of his muscles, group by group. He felt pretty good for having spent upwards of eight hours standing in a tree. It didn’t hurt to be thorough, though, considering he was old for an active ninja. He didn’t relish the thought of limping carefully all the way back to Fire country because he‘d torn a ligament or strained muscles, or done something that warming up could prevent.

Between stretching and thoughts Sasuke, Kakashi’s attention wandered more than it should have. When he leapt down from the branches of the elm, the nearest guard was closer than he’d been anticipating. Crap. Kakashi took off into the countryside, using what cover he could find while the guards gave chase. He’d have to lead them around for a while and then ditch them without engaging. Orders were orders, however inconvenient. He shook his head and wiped the sweat away from his eye. At least he could move around now. He was also thankful that his pursuers were mediocre chuunin at best. Even so, he would almost prefer fighting them to running. Kakashi sighed and kept moving.

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Chapter seven should come out a little faster than this one...considering it's not plagued by boring narrative. Hooray for not having to flesh out two paragraphs' worth of summary into three pages of real story! (I'll need to do just a tiny bit of filling-in-the-blank, I think. You know, for the sake of not confusing the reader and all. ^_^ )

Later!

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