In Another Life

The Hokage’s office is washed in late afternoon gold, the sun slanting through tall windows and painting long bars of light across the polished wood floor. Dust drifts lazily in the beams, swirling every so often like snow caught in warm breath. It’s quiet here, deceptively so. Too still for your comfort.

The scent of paper and wax, a faint thread of sandalwood incense curling in from the corner burner—it should be grounding. Familiar. But it only tightens the coiled wire of anticipation in your chest.

You stand straight, hands folded behind your back, Tenzo to your right—both of you silent, motionless, waiting.

Behind the Hokage’s desk, Sarutobi shifts in his seat. The wood creaks softly under his weight, and the rustle of parchment follows as he lifts a sheet, squinting down at it through the smoke of his pipe.

Then it happens.

The shift.

It’s subtle—less sound, more sense. A pull at the air. The faintest ripple of chakra, like a blade slipped just beneath the surface of still water.

You don’t turn, but you feel it.

The quiet displacement of space behind you, the drag of presence too familiar to mistake.

Then—

A flicker of movement in your periphery, calculated and seamless. The briefest whisper of cloth and masked breath.

Kakashi.

Of course he’s late. And of course he makes it seem deliberate.

The Hokage doesn’t comment. You don’t either. Neither does Tenzo, though he shoots a quick glance your way like he’s bracing for incoming shrapnel.

Kakashi slips into position behind you, silent as a ghost. His chakra buzzes faintly at your back—steady, measured, cold.

The silence stretches a second longer.

Then the Hokage speaks, his voice calm but edged with quiet weight.

“You three are to investigate the northern outposts. The ones along the old border ridge, past the Zensui crossing.”

He lifts the mission report and reads without looking up. “We’ve received fragmented intel—disturbances in the environment, minor chakra shifts. Animals migrating out of season. Insects vanishing. It could be natural. But we don’t make that assumption without proof.”

You nod slightly, already breaking the task into segments in your head. Travel time. Terrain challenges. Backup response windows. Supplies. You’re calculating as the Hokage speaks, eyes trained ahead.

Then the air shifts again.

This time, it’s a voice.

Low. Flat. Dismissive.

“I don’t think she should come.”

You blink.

Your gaze cuts to the side, sharp. Your spine straightens even more than it already was.

Kakashi.

The bastard doesn’t even look at you. He’s addressing the Hokage directly, tone smooth and devoid of any edge.

“She’s been rotating through field assignments for two weeks straight. Fatigue builds. It compromises situational awareness. If this anomaly is what we suspect, we can’t afford reduced precision.”

Your mouth tightens.

You wait. You give him one second—one full heartbeat—to turn to you. To elaborate. To offer something more than cold professionalism in place of context.

He doesn’t.

“Fatigue,” you repeat, the word dry on your tongue. “That’s what you’re going with?”

Still no eye contact.

You step forward, slow and measured, like you’re not thisclose to breaking protocol.

“I’m standing right here, Hatake. If you have something to say, I suggest you look me in the eye and say it.”

Tenzo shifts beside you, a subtle recalibration of posture. Like he’s preparing to slide between the both of you at a moment’s notice.

Kakashi’s answer is smooth, unreadable. “It’s a tactical opinion. Nothing personal.”

That’s a lie.

You feel the heat crawl into your chest, simmering under your ribs. You keep your voice even, but there’s a dangerous edge in it now. “You’re not giving tactical input. You’re trying to sideline me.”

You stare at him, waiting for him to crack. To flinch. To explain.

He doesn’t.

“Not everything is about you,” he says, tone as flat as the edge of a knife.

“No,” you bite back, “sometimes it’s just convenient to act like it is.

Tenzo steps in, hands raised slightly, voice too calm. “Maybe we should—”

“Enough.”

The Hokage’s voice slices clean through the room. Firm, not angry. Disappointed, maybe. Heavy with finality.

The silence that follows is loud.

Sarutobi rests both elbows on the desk and folds his hands. His gaze flicks between you. “You will go. All of you. This mission requires eyes I trust, and that includes hers.”

A beat.

“I expect you to remember that.”

Neither you nor Kakashi respond.

The meeting ends not with dismissal, but with silence. You bow, turn on your heel, and step out of the office without sparing him a glance.

Kakashi vanishes from your periphery the moment your foot hits the hallway.

And just like that, he’s gone.

But the heat in your chest lingers long after.

You leave the village the next morning before the sun has fully breached the horizon, its light still a pale bruise against the edge of the sky. The gates creak open behind you with a familiar groan, swallowed quickly by the forest ahead. Your sandals touch earth, damp with morning dew, and the world narrows into motion. Trees. Breath. Distance.

No one speaks.

The silence isn’t comfortable. It’s coiled—tight and wary, like a tripwire waiting for the wrong step.

Tenzo tries.

He walks a half-step behind you, voice easy but deliberate. “Trail’s pretty clear this way. We’ll cut down half a day if we avoid the rivers.

You nod. Noncommittal.

“Supposed to rain tomorrow,” he continues after a beat. “Not heavy. Just enough to soak your socks and make you question your life choices.”

You hum. Barely.

He tries one more time. “There’s a merchant near the eastern gate now—sells these spicy rice crackers. You’d like them. Crisp enough to chip a tooth.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He glances sideways, but you don’t look at him.

Kakashi hasn’t said a word.

You know he’s behind you. A few paces. Always just within range but never within reach. His chakra signature stays cool and low, folded tight to his skin like it doesn’t want to be noticed. Like he doesn’t want to be noticed.

You take point.

He doesn’t argue.

The first few hours drag in the way all tense silences do. Every branch crack feels louder. Every snapped twig feels like a challenge. The forest air is crisp, birdsong scattered in the canopy, but none of it cuts the weight between your shoulder blades.

By midday, the path slopes downward into a shallow valley, dense with ferns and mist. You stop by a creek bed to refill your canteens, crouching by the water while Tenzo frowns at his map.

“So the last disturbance was here,” he mutters, tapping the parchment. “Same coordinates reported on that patrol three weeks ago. Said the air pressure dropped like a storm was coming, but it never rained.”

You glance over. “Electromagnetic variance?”

“Maybe. Could also be—”

“Leyline,” Kakashi says from behind you, cutting in smoothly.

You both glance back.

He’s not looking at either of you. Kneeling beside a mossy stone, checking a chakra sensor you didn’t see him pull out. His tone is level, indifferent.

“They cross in this area. Might be natural chakra flux.”

Tenzo tilts his head. “Could explain the wildlife displacement.”

You open your mouth. Shut it.

The words die before they’re even formed.

Because even now—when he speaks—it’s like you’re a shadow on the edge of the frame. Like your presence doesn’t require acknowledgment.

That night, the sky turns a bruised lavender before giving way to stars. You set up camp beneath a copse of cedar trees, the bark flaking beneath your hands as you secure your tarp overhead. The fire between you flickers low and steady, more for comfort than heat. It pops occasionally, throwing sparks into the dark.

You sharpen your kunai. A slow, methodical motion. The scrape of stone against steel is almost meditative.

Tenzo pokes half-heartedly at a fish he caught in the creek. “Could use some salt,” he mutters, chewing thoughtfully anyway.

Across from you, Kakashi doesn’t sit.

He leans against a tree, arms crossed, one ankle tucked behind the other. His face is turned to the woods, half-lit by firelight, half-swallowed by shadow.

He hasn’t said a word since the creek.

You don’t speak to him.

You think about it—once. Just a flicker of instinct.

To break the ice. To ask if he’s always been this dramatic when someone challenges him. To throw something at his head and demand he look at you like you’re still a teammate, not a threat.

But the way he stands—deliberately turned away, the line of his back taut, unreadable—it hits the wrong nerve. It feels like punishment. It feels like guilt he won’t admit and a wound he won’t treat.

So you stay silent.

The night drags on, slow and brittle.

You lie awake longer than you need to. Listening to the rustle of wind in the trees. The subtle shifts of Tenzo’s breathing as he drifts off.

And beyond that—the quiet.

The kind that presses too close to your skin. Like something’s listening.

Watching.

Waiting.

The second day, it rains.

Not the dramatic kind—no thunder, no sheets of downpour that make you curse the gods and pull up your collar. Just a quiet, miserable drizzle that soaks through the seams of your uniform and clings to your spine like regret. It beads along the edge of your mask, runs under your collar, seeps into your gloves until every step squelches faintly beneath your boots.

The forest is a study in gray and green, muted and sodden. Mist curls low to the ground, threading through ferns and over fallen logs like something alive.

You move in silence. Not tactical silence—tense silence. The kind that comes when too many things have been left unsaid, and every step forward feels like a retreat from something else.

Tenzo walks ahead, his presence quiet, steady. Reliable as always. Kakashi takes the rear, which would be logical if it didn’t also let him avoid having to look at you.

Not that he’s trying very hard to hide it.

When you pause at a fork in the path, unrolling the damp map to double-check the route, you catch the flick of his eye—brief, precise—skimming over your shoulder and not a millimeter closer.

Like you’re a tree. Or a stone.

You clench your jaw, shoving the map back into its oilskin pouch. You shouldn’t care. You shouldn’t.

But it stings anyway.

More than you’d like to admit.

And maybe he knows it. Maybe that’s the point.

Tenzo halts ahead, steps off the trail onto a dry patch beneath a pine tree and holds up a hand.

“Break?” he offers, like he’s being generous.

You nod. Drop your pack with more force than necessary and crouch beside it, flexing your hands. Your gloves squish faintly with water. Lovely.

Tenzo eyes you for a beat, then cuts a look over his shoulder.

“Okay,” he says, gesturing vaguely between the two of you like he’s waving away a bad smell. “Whatever this is? Can we just—maybe stop doing it? Please?”

You glance up.

Kakashi doesn’t.

He adjusts the straps on his flak vest, gaze still cast somewhere into the trees. As if the moss-covered rocks are vastly more interesting than the fact that one of his teammates is slowly vibrating with contained irritation and the other is trying to play peacekeeper in a storm.

You spread your hands. “Ask him.”

It comes out flat. Tired. With just the edge of bite.

Kakashi says nothing. Just swings his pack over one shoulder, movements clean and easy, and starts walking again.

Like it’s not worth his time to respond.

You don’t follow immediately.

You crouch there, dripping and cold and fuming in a slow, quiet kind of way. Not the explosive rage that demands violence, but the low-grade ache of something slowly, carefully, being pulled apart.

Tenzo exhales like he’s been holding in a scream. “Great.”

You give him a tight smile that feels like it barely reaches your cheekbones. “Welcome to the shitstorm.”

He shrugs helplessly and trudges after Kakashi.

Eventually, you do too.

But your steps feel heavier than the rain.

And colder than the mud.

By the time you reach the ridgeline—the final outpost on your route—you can’t tell what’s fraying your nerves more: the silence Kakashi insists on wearing like armor, or the subtle wrongness of the terrain itself. The last few clicks through the forest had been wordless, tension dragging behind the three of you like a second shadow. Even Tenzo’s attempts at casual conversation have dwindled to a resigned quiet.

The clearing here is shallow and steep, a natural basin surrounded by crooked trees that lean just slightly too far inward. The air is still—too still. Even the wind seems uncertain, curling around your ankles like it’s lost.

Tenzo unrolls a scroll and begins checking chakra sensors, kneeling on the damp forest floor, muttering to himself. You move toward the perimeter of the outpost, scanning for any signs of damage or tracks, but nothing stirs. No wildlife. No bird calls. No insects.

Even the crunch of leaves under your boots feels… wrong.

The silence isn’t peaceful.

It’s hollow. Watchful.

Kakashi disappears into the trees without a word, his movements practiced and clean. He doesn’t say where he’s going. You don’t ask. You’re not sure you’d like the answer if he gave one.

Camp that night is tucked beneath a rock outcrop that shields against the worst of the wind. The fire is small—just enough to boil water and warm your hands. You’re crouched near it, splitting deadwood with a short blade, methodical and sharp in your movements. Sparks crackle with every flick of your wrist, and your knuckles ache from the cold.

Then, your grip slips.

The blade catches skin.

You hiss softly, more from surprise than pain. It’s not deep—just enough to sting and bloom red across your palm.

Before you can reach for the medkit, he’s there.

Kakashi.

You didn’t hear him approach. Didn’t feel him move. One second you’re alone in your little circle of light, the next his hand is closing around your wrist.

It isn’t rough.

But it isn’t gentle, either.

His touch is steady, fingers cold. Clinical. Like he’s treating a stranger on a battlefield.

You glance up at him, half a breath caught behind your teeth. His face is unreadable behind the mask, Sharingan hooded and hidden beneath his hitai-ate, but his focus is razor-sharp as he tears the corner off a bandage packet and wraps your hand in silence.

You don’t speak.

Neither does he.

Not a word. Not a flicker of acknowledgment. Just the soft pull of gauze against skin and the sterile scent of antiseptic.

When he finishes, he lets go of your wrist like it burns him.

Then turns, and walks away.

No eye contact. No check-in. No comment.

Just vanishes into the treeline like he never stopped.

You sit there, blinking at the spot he left behind.

The fire crackles. The night presses in around you. Your fingers flex against the pressure of the wrap, your skin still warm where his hand had held yours.

And something tightens in your chest. Sharp. Frustrated. Familiar in the worst way.

You hate that it got to you.

That some stupid, instinctive part of you had wanted more—an apology. A word. Even a glance.

Because the silence he gave you instead?

It feels like a punishment.

And maybe the worst part is… you’re not even sure what you’re being punished for.

You look down at your hand. At the clean wrap, the efficient knot, the careful tension.

You wish he hadn’t helped at all.

Because now it feels like the wound’s not just in your hand.

It’s somewhere deeper.

And it won’t stop stinging.

Complicated asshole.