Standing Too Close
You’re both quiet on the way back.
Not tense. Not uneasy. Just… aware.
Tenzo walks beside you, eyes forward, expression unreadable. The sun filters through the trees in broken shafts, light bouncing off dew-damp leaves, but it doesn’t reach the forest floor the same way it did three days ago. The shadows linger too long. Curl the wrong way.
Neither of you say it aloud.
Not the way the wind still brushes the back of your neck like a warning. Not the way the birds have yet to return to their usual chatter. Not the way your shadow looked too long this morning, stretching across the clearing before the sun had even crested the trees.
You still haven’t shaken the feeling from last night—the strange ripple that bent the campfire sideways for a breath too long. Not wind. Not jutsu. Something else.
Something colder.
You glance at Tenzo. He doesn’t meet your gaze, but you can tell. He felt it too.
By the time the gates of Konoha rise into view, you expect the weight to lift from your chest—but it doesn’t. Not fully. You walk through them in silence, nod to the guards without stopping, and part ways at the first intersection, both of you needing time to think. To breathe.
But there’s no time for that.
You’re summoned before you even make it back to your apartment. A message delivered in crisp, clipped words: The Hokage will see you now.
Great.
The tower smells like old wood, ink, and the faintest trace of ash. You sit in front of the Hokage’s desk, fingers still dusty from the trail, uniform stained at the knees. Tenzo is already there, posture straight, mouth drawn tight. He doesn’t look at you.
Hiruzen Sarutobi watches you both over folded hands.
He doesn’t speak immediately. Just studies you. His eyes, dark and steady behind the veil of smoke from his pipe, miss nothing.
You’re used to scrutiny. But this feels different.
Measured. Expectant.
Like he’s waiting for you to say something first.
So you do.
“Something was wrong out there.”
The pipe dips slightly. “Explain.”
You glance at Tenzo, who gives a single nod. You tell him everything—how the wind shifted, how the birds vanished, how the clearing pulsed with something not quite chakra, how the fire bent.
How it felt.
Hiruzen listens. Silent. When you finish, he exhales slowly. The smoke twists in the sunlight.
“That area borders an old sector,” he says finally. “Abandoned after the Third War. Some believe the terrain was damaged by forbidden jutsu—experimental barriers. War makes people reckless.”
You frown. “This wasn’t just warped terrain.”
“No,” he agrees quietly. “It wasn’t.”
That sets your nerves on edge.
“You’ve seen it before,” Tenzo says. Not a question.
The Hokage taps his pipe against the edge of a tray. Ash falls like gray snow. “Once. Years ago. Different location. Same… ripple.”
You lean forward. “What is it?”
He looks at you with the weariness of someone who’s seen too much. “Something old. And buried. And better left that way.”
You don’t like that answer.
Neither does Tenzo, judging by the flicker in his brow.
“We’ll keep an eye on the area,” Sarutobi says. “But you’re both done with this mission. Rest. Report back in three days.”
Dismissed.
Just like that.
You walk out with Tenzo beside you, the sun slanting low in the sky, coloring the rooftops amber. The breeze carries the scent of food and smoke and civilian life. Konoha goes on, blissfully unaware of whatever ancient, twisted thing you may have just brushed shoulders with.
Tenzo stops a few steps outside the tower.
You glance at him. “You okay?”
He hesitates, then gives a low sigh. “You ever get the feeling something’s looking at you… even after it’s gone?”
You don’t answer right away.
Because yeah.
You do.
The office is quiet when they enter.
You’re the first through the door, as always. You don’t look around. Don’t glance toward the darker corners of the room where he’s standing so still he might as well be a shadow cast by the paper walls.
Typical. Sharp. Efficient. Eyes forward.
You have no idea he’s there. Or if you do, you don't show it.
Good.
Tenzo moves in behind you with the same ANBU polish, posture perfectly upright, every movement precise. You both look worse for wear, but that’s expected—mud on your flak vests, dried blood near the seams, the kind of smudges and bruises that speak of a mission that didn’t quite go sideways but grazed the edge of something else.
Something older.
Something hungry.
You stand at attention before the Hokage’s desk, your report clear, clipped, focused.
But your chakra’s off.
He can feel it. Not panicked. Not frayed. Just slightly… reaching. Like your senses are still extended, like your body isn’t sure if the mission is truly over or if it’s just holding its breath.
He knows that posture. He’s worn it himself.
He doesn’t let himself look at you too long.
Your voice is steady as you recount what happened. The silence in the woods. The flickering fire. The dead clearing, empty of life or scent or wind. That pulse—whatever it was—hitting beneath the skin like something brushing the inside of your ribs.
You describe it with clinical detail.
But there’s an edge underneath it. The part you don’t say.
You were scared.
He can tell.
Hiruzen listens without interruption, only nodding once when you describe the ripple, the way the air shifted like water pulled back before a wave.
Kakashi feels it again, just remembering. That same pressure. The same weightless wrongness. The kind of tension you can’t trace to a source because the source doesn’t belong here.
He thought that mission was behind him. That whatever they encountered then had sealed itself away, or died in silence.
But now, hearing your words—
It’s not over.
When you finish, the room settles into stillness.
Hiruzen exhales through his nose, slow and thoughtful. His expression doesn’t change much—just a subtle tightness in his jaw, a flicker behind his eyes that only someone like Kakashi would notice.
Something’s familiar to the Hokage about what you’ve described.
“I see,” Hiruzen says at last. “You’ve both done well. I’ll be assigning further investigation.”
You glance at Tenzo, but say nothing.
“Dismissed.”
You nod once, turn crisply, and leave without hesitation. Tenzo follows.
You don’t look back.
But Kakashi watches the way your chakra moves as you walk. Like a tide going out. Uneven.
Only when the door clicks shut does the Hokage speak again.
“You can come out now.”
Kakashi steps forward silently, the ANBU mask still in place, but his presence no longer veiled. His shadow stretches across the floor as he moves toward the desk, each step quiet, measured.
“Hound.”
“Hokage-sama.”
“What do you think?”
Kakashi pauses.
“It’s the same thing,” he says finally. “Or something like it. From the Kusagakure border mission. Years ago.”
Hiruzen nods once, slow.
“The forest splitting. Chakra behaving like it’s underwater,” Kakashi continues. “Sound lagging. The flickers. They’re all symptoms.”
The Hokage is quiet.
Then: “You lost people on that mission.”
Kakashi’s jaw tightens beneath the mask. “We lost everyone. I just walked out faster.”
It hangs in the air between them for a long moment.
“I need you to keep an eye on them,” Hiruzen says finally.
Kakashi doesn’t ask who he means.
Tenzo is capable. Careful. Loyal.
But you—you’re unpredictable. Not erratic, but unyielding in a way that makes people underestimate how much force you can hold. You adapt. You recover. And more than once, you’ve walked away from places no one else did.
And whatever’s stirring out there?
It might be looking for someone like you.
“They’ll know I’m watching,” Kakashi says after a pause.
“Then be subtle.”
“You didn’t ask me to protect them.”
The Hokage meets his gaze, level and steady. “I didn’t think I needed to.”
Kakashi doesn’t answer.
But he knows what that means. Knows that part of Hiruzen believes this thing—whatever it is—chose you. That you might be the anchor, the seam it could use to crawl through the edges of the world and back into this one.
He hates that idea.
You don’t even know what you’re caught in.
“I want to know what it wants,” the Hokage says quietly. “Before it remembers.”
Kakashi nods once.
And vanishes.
You don’t speak until the office doors click shut behind you.
Even then, the sound that leaves your chest is less word than breath—a long exhale, stale and hollow. Like shaking dust from your lungs. Like shedding something that’s clung too close for too long.
Beside you, Tenzo adjusts the strap of his pack, his movements careful, neutral. Not quite tense, but deliberate in that quiet way he always is when he’s thinking harder than he’s letting on. He flicks a glance your way, sharp but brief.
Waiting.
You feel it in the space between you—the question he doesn’t voice. About the woods. The stillness. The fire. The way the light bent wrong, like it was warping around something invisible and watching.
You don’t answer. You’re not even sure how you would.
So instead, you mutter, “Gonna check in with supply. See if they’ve restocked those field kits.”
It’s a lie. Not entirely, but close enough. Still, he nods. Doesn’t push.
You part ways at the junction near the outer compound. He slips into the shadow of the east hall, and you drift west, letting your feet carry you on muscle memory.
The walk back should be ordinary. Uneventful. You’ve walked these streets a hundred times—bloodied, exhausted, laughing, limping, indifferent.
But today the village feels… off.
Too normal.
It’s mid-afternoon. The streets are warm with sunlight and sound—vendors calling out the price of fresh fish, metal singing from the blacksmith’s forge, the distant clatter of sandals from children running underfoot. Konoha hums like it always does.
But underneath it—beneath the familiar weight of home—is something else.
A static.
A buzz under your skin.
Like chakra you can’t quite place, humming just beyond reach. Not loud. Not immediate. But present. Waiting.
You take the long way home without realizing it.
Down side streets where paper wind chimes rattle faintly in the breeze. Past the academy wall where chalky voices shout over one another in a sparring match. Through the garden district, where the old gravel paths twist between trees that were saplings when you were a genin.
Here, everything narrows. The sunlight dims.
And still… something brushes your awareness.
Soft. A thread pulled taut. Gone before you can catch hold of it.
But it leaves a taste behind. That metallic tang you only ever get when chakra is moving where it shouldn’t. Like someone was there—and just stepped out of reach.
You slow.
Hand drifting to your hip, grazing your weapon holster.
Stillness.
But not peace.
You scan the rooftops. Empty. Windows. Still. Shadows stretch the wrong way across the gravel, and you swear for half a second one moves faster than it should. But when you look again—it’s just wind. Just leaves.
Probably.
You exhale, slow and steady.
Probably used to be enough to soothe the tension under your skin. But lately, probably has teeth.
You keep walking.
More deliberate now. More aware of every sound, every flicker at the edge of your vision. The longer you walk, the more it feels like something is walking with you—just behind, just out of sight.
Watching.
Waiting.
You don’t rush. That would be admitting you feel it. That you know something’s not right.
Instead, you take the final turn toward your street like you’re not still tasting the forest in the back of your throat. Like your nerves aren’t strung tight as wire. Like the strange pulse you felt two nights ago hasn’t curled itself into your spine and taken root.
By the time you reach your apartment, the sun has dropped below the rooftops. The light is rich and golden, too warm, like the day is trying too hard to convince you everything is fine.
He doesn’t move. Just breathes—slow and steady, one with the shadows.
It’s not surveillance. Not exactly. He’d already read the report, sat through the debriefing, memorized the cadence of your voice when you spoke about what wasn’t there—what couldn’t be tracked or quantified but still made the trees feel too still. It was subtle, precise. The kind of mission where the facts were clean, but the space between them was off.
So now he’s here.
Not following.
Not really.
Just… present.
A quiet habit he never quite broke.
You move below, your gait familiar in its discipline—shoulders tense, but not alarmed. Controlled. The way it always is after a mission that didn’t go wrong, but didn’t sit right either.
You pause at the corner of the garden path, just beneath the sag of an old tree heavy with moss. The kind that groans when it rains. You tilt your head ever so slightly, like the air shifted just wrong.
Like something tugged at your spine.
He doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t so much as adjust his weight on the tiles beneath him. But he feels it too. That tug.
(You don’t see him.)
(But he’s nearly sure you feel him.)
Your chakra signature pulses—just a ripple, like a breath caught in the chest. And then it settles.
You keep walking.
Kakashi exhales through his mask.
You’ve always been good at hiding what’s going on beneath your skin. Better than most. You’re sharper than you let on, more aware than you pretend to be, and—until recently—that made things easier. Made you someone he could read from a distance without getting pulled in too deep.
But now?
Now something is scratching beneath the edges of the world, dragging its nails along the seams of the air, and for some reason—
You’re standing too close to it.
Too close for his comfort.
And that—
That’s what he doesn’t like.
He watches as you pause again before your building, glancing toward the roofline, but not quite at him. Your hand hovers near your thigh—not reaching for a weapon, just listening.
To the air.
To the quiet.
To whatever’s beginning to move beneath it.
You’ve got good instincts.
They’re telling you something’s off. That you’re not walking alone.
And you’re right.
Kakashi’s always been good at vanishing. Slipping into corners where no one bothers to look. But even from the rooftop, from the safe, familiar hush of elevation, he can feel the way his presence tugs at your senses like static brushing too close to skin.
He should leave. There’s no mission. No orders. You’re home.
But he doesn’t.
Not yet.
He watches you disappear inside your apartment, lingering only long enough to see the window creak open and your silhouette shift through the curtain.
Then he turns and walks the roofline in silence, each step measured and slow.
You’re self-sufficient. Independent. Always have been.
But for the first time in a long time, he’s not sure that’s going to be enough.
Not with what’s coming.
And if you are starting to suspect you’re not alone out there—
He wonders what you’ll do when you finally realize you aren’t alone in here either.
By the time you reach your apartment, the sky is bleeding into that soft gold that comes just before dusk. It turns the rooftops warm and the windows amber, as if the whole village is lit from within. It’s the kind of light that makes even worn stone look gentle. The kind that makes you feel like maybe—just maybe—you’re somewhere safe.
You unlock your door with practiced fingers. The hinges creak the same way they always have. Familiar. The floor gives under your weight in all the usual places. You toe your boots off by the entryway, the laces dragging like dried vines, and drop your pack by the wall with a quiet thud.
You stand in place for a moment, fingers flexing, the seams of your gloves still imprinting lines into your skin.
Then you peel them off, slow and deliberate, setting them on the table like they might still carry whatever it was you brushed up against in that hollow patch of woods. Like they might remember something you don’t want to.
Your blades are still sheathed. Unused. But you check them anyway. Another habit. Or maybe reassurance.
The apartment smells faintly like old dust and sandalwood oil.
You move without thought, the rhythm of home settling over your limbs—walk to the kitchen, fill the kettle, strike the match for the stove. Your body knows this quiet.
Your mind doesn’t.
You cross to the window
And freeze.
Your window is cracked open.
Not unusual.
You leave it that way sometimes, especially on warm days. But you know it was shut when you left. You remember the sound of the latch snapping into place.
You move slowly. Quietly. You don’t touch your weapons—yet—but your steps are silent, practiced. You check the corners. The shelves. The shadows.
Nothing.
No sign of forced entry. No chakra trace you can catch.
Just a breeze curling through the room.
You move to the window.
Pause.
The curtain shifts.
Not away from the wind—but toward it.
Only for a second.
Then it settles.
Still.
You stand there for a long time, hand resting on the windowsill, eyes on the quiet street below.
The wind spills in gently, dragging the scent of sun-warmed rooftops and green things, clean and cool.
The curtain lifts—
But not the way it should.
It shifts toward the breeze. Not away from it.
A subtle ripple. Barely there. But you’ve felt the difference between natural and wrong enough times to know it on instinct.
You stop.
The air stills.
Your heartbeat doesn’t.
You scan the room—no movement. No shadows out of place. Just the ticking of the kettle and the faint sound of footsteps several floors down, someone coming home late, laughing softly to themselves.
You could brush it off.
You probably will.
But not yet.
You close the window. Just in case.
The kettle shrieks softly a minute later. You pour the water over dried leaves and let them steep. The smell is earthy, calming. A blend you mixed yourself—part mint, part mugwort. For clarity. For grounding.
You light the incense next. Only the one you keep tucked away in the corner of the drawer. The one you use when the world starts pressing too hard around the edges.
The smoke curls slow, ghosting into the corners of the room. You sit on the floor with your tea, legs stretched out, one hand still absently resting near your kunai pouch.
You don’t even realize you’re doing it until your fingers brush the fabric.
The silence is comforting. At first.
Then too thick.
Too dense.
Like it’s listening.
The shadows from the candle flicker longer than they should. Not wildly—just enough to notice. Just enough to feel like something in the apartment is watching them move.
You tell yourself it’s nerves. Residual chakra dissonance. Maybe your body still humming from that pulse you and Tenzo felt in the woods.
But…
You look at the gloves again.
Still on the table. Still holding the shape of your hands.
You pick them up and tuck them away. Out of sight. Out of reach.
When you finally slide under your sheets—damp hair from your shower still clinging to your temple—the city outside has gone quiet. Not unusual. Not really.
But you notice the difference between quiet and emptied.
And tonight, the silence sounds emptied.
Sleep takes longer to come. Your tea grows cold on the bedside table. The incense burns down to ash.
And as you drift—slowly, unevenly—into something like rest, one thought nestles at the edge of your mind and refuses to leave:
Whatever found you in the woods… didn’t stay there.