No Doubt
Gumo twisted his hands, cyan eyes pinned on the tree line. It was nearing sundown and Ruto and Kirum still weren’t back. Mama Kōri had released them from their studies a little after sun high once she’d learned their brothers had snuck away and they’d gone to play as they always did. But they all knew to be back by sundown, it was the one thing she’d enforced without question.
If they wanted to eat, they needed to be back in the clearing if not in the den. After their short life in the orphanage, he and Ruto obeyed it with gusto. They were never denied food through out the day if they were hungry, but sundown was sundown and the litter wanted to keep their Den Mother happy as often as they could.
And yet…
His brothers hadn’t returned.
“They’ll be back,” a yawn preceded the words and Gumo looked at the she-wolf in his lap. “If not, I’ll bite them.”
“Diapha,” he sighed, scratching the spot under her chin she enjoyed so much. “Biting our brothers is not appropriate.”
“Yes, mother,” she snorted but the worry was still evident in the way she crawled further into his lap, even if she was getting too big to fit there comfortably anymore.
The she-wolf perked up, looking over her shoulder in the direction Gumo had been staring and he followed her gaze. The bushes were shaking.
A head of sunflower yellow appeared and he was on his feet in an instant, sending Diapha tumbling. She yelped, but he didn’t stop to apologize; he was focused on rushing to his human brother. “Ruto!”
The blond looked up, as if finally noticing him, and Gumo wrapped him in a hug. “Where were you? I was so worried. You and Kirum are in so much trouble, Mama Kōri’s already said she’s going to make you do twice the reading tomorrow because you—” Then he felt it.
His brother, his ever loveable, stubborn, unyielding brother was shaking. Pulling away, Gumo searched his features. He’d been crying, eyes red, cheeks swollen, and now that he was paying attention, he detected a sickly sweet cloying smell that clung to the blond’s usual grassfoxpine scent. “Ruto?” he asked quietly.
“H-H-He gothurt. Blood. So much. Blood. Human. Mean Human.” Ruto babbled before he sobbed, lurching forward to cling to Gumo. The redhead clung to him just as tightly and shot a look at Diapha.
Instead of her usual carefree expression, her eyes were hard, worryanger reading in her tense posture and she nodded. Tilting her head back, she howled, long and low. Again and again, she repeated the call until their Den Mother emerged from the tree line at a run.
Taking one look at the sobbing boy, she nudged them in the direction of the den. It was slow going, his brother didn’t want to let go, and if Gumo were being honest, he didn’t really want to either but in the end the four of them were curled up in front of the fire. Ruto hid between Gumo and Mama Kōri while Diapha laid across both their laps, slowly and methodically cleaning up the red staining his brother’s tanned arms. Themo laid behind them, protecting their back since Sasuke had returned to his pack earlier in the day.
“There was a human,” Ruto murmured, threading his fingers in their Den Mother’s fur. “he didn’t feel like a human. He wanted to-to,” his nose scrunched as if he was going to cry again and Mama Kōri licked his cheek in reassurance. Grateful wasn’t so clear over sorrow but the notion was seen. “He wanted to take me, said I had to go see someone but there was something wrong about it and we ran the other way.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, the story came out. When they found out their brother had been injured, Diapha and Themo whined worry. Then it came to the Lone that took Kirum and Ruto looked at their Den Mother.
“Mama, I-I had to. His scent is every where in the territory and you never said it was a bad scent and Kirum was going-going to die.” he cried, burying his face in her fur.
Mama Kōri sighed, nosing him gently before she looked at all them, “I should’ve known my pups would be so smart to find another in our borders. He is not a Lone but he carries himself as one. It is he and Pakkun-Inu who helped us when your siblings were younger. They hunted so I could feed you all, otherwise we all would’ve perished over the cold time.”
“Is he safe?” Gumo found himself asking. He knew his nose was nowhere near as good as Ruto’s but even he had smelled the Lonesorrowgrief scent when they climbed into the higher reaches of the trees.
She nodded, “Yes, he is safe. If I am not close, trust him, and he will help when I cannot.”
Themo wedged his way between them, laying his head on Ruto and Gumo’s lap and looked up at their mother. “Will Kirum really be okay?”
“I have no doubt.” As if those words were the sap that kept the pine needles together, it reassured the siblings one in the same. She touched noses with all of them, “he will return to us before long, and when he does I will begin your training. It is time you all learn how to truly wield your teeth and claws in battle so that this may never happen again.”
XxX
The Hokage wasn’t expecting him. That much became clear when Inu perched on the windowsill. An orange book Inu had been looking at in a bookstore was in clear view, his superior’s nose deep in the text. Sarutobi glanced up, catching sight of him and the book disappeared into a drawer.
“Inu-kun, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Inu slid out of the window, walking around the front of the desk at a measured pace before setting a black scroll in front of the man. He turned his head subtly, glaring at the ANBU guard waiting in the shadowed reaches of the office. The Hokage nodded, a hand signal leaving them entirely alone within a matter of moments. To add insult to injury of the eyes and ears on them, the old man swiped a hand under his desk.
Feeling the pulse of chakra that silenced all outside noise and kept their words from leaving the room, Kakashi reigned in his temper, reaching up to remove his mask and slide it to the side of his head. This was a matter that required sincerity, a threat he deemed severe enough to bare teeth at his leader and make his point known. “I’d like permission to hunt a mole within Konoha’s territory, sir.” Okay, so maybe he wasn’t as calm as he attempted to portray but the day’s events had set him on edge.
The pack, his pack, had been threatened, and while he hadn’t claimed the Alpha title, he knew Kōri-san would back down and let him once he did. That meant they were his to protect. She was doing a fine job raising the pups, but they needed a leader, an Alpha to stand in the way of their enemies and lead them into battle.
Sarutobi, for all his steady, unshakeable personality, leaned back in his seat as if the scroll was a snake ready to strike. “May I ask you the mole you will be hunting?”
“Danzo sent ROOT after Naruto; they attempted to take him and kill his sibling while they were playing on the shore of Lake Ki. That ridiculous escapade of a meeting earlier was a distraction to keep me away.”The Jounin gestured at the scroll, “That is the remains of the agent who failed to do the task.”
It was like watching the sun bleach bones as Sarutobi paled, his hand reaching for the proof that would back Kakashi’s claims. Opening it, he did not summon the remains, merely staring at the seal on the paper before looking up. “Were they injured?”
Kakashi exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “Physically, Naruto wasn’t. Psychologically, he is shaken. As to how bad, I won’t know until I speak to Kōri-san.”
“I see, and this sibling? Which one was it?” The Hokage had that going for him, at least. He held a Summoning Contract. He knew what it meant to get close to the creatures, that they had personalities and lives besides fighting alongside a Shinobi. Over the course of their meetings, he’d paid special attention to the changes in Naruto and Gumo’s behavior as they integrated themselves into the pack. The most crucial part to Kakashi, though, was that Sandaime understood how much the wolves and the brothers cared for each other and called them pack.
“Kirum…” he trailed off, anger flaring toward rage once more. “The pup would’ve died if I’d arrived two seconds later. He would’ve died on that shore, and that, more than anything, would’ve broken Naruto. As it is, I’ve taken him to the Inuzuka.”
The Hokage’s head shot up, shock clear in his old eyes. “The Inuzuka?”
Kakashi nodded, “Inuzuka Hana, to be exact. She treats my pack when I’m off mission; there’s no one else I trust more to care for him while he heals.”
Closing the scroll, his superior set it down and ran a hand down his face. He looked old, he looked tired, he looked ready to drown in a bottle of sake and never wake up. Instead, Sarutobi closed his eyes, cutting off any chance of Kakashi gleaming any idea of the thoughts going through his mind.
Finally, finally, he sighed. “What would you do if I denied your request?”
Instead of giving a straight forward answer, the Hatake tilted his head, a gleam in his sole silver-gray eye. “Did you know a wolf’s den is never more than a temporary measure? That once the pups are old enough, they travel to a rendezvous point where they are introduced to the rest of the pack and grow into adulthood?”
The pups were old enough. Between Kōri-san, Pakkun, and himself, they could raise the litter into adulthood. And that wasn’t counting Kakashi’s other summons. The pack had been itching for months to meet them, and they would be more than happy to merge. Konoha wasn’t more than a resting stop. It would never be a home if the measures weren’t taken now to keep them here.
To Kakashi, that meant Danzo needed to die.
Would his rule abiding, stickler of a shinobi self be dying of shame for threatening his Hokage? Absolutely. But that was before Obito died, before he’d held a too small bundle in his arms and mourned a woman who the child would never know. Incense haunted his nose to this day with the reminder of the promise he made and Kakashi would steal his Sensei’s legacy and become a missing-nin before he broke it.
The Sandaime grimaced, “You’re putting me in a rough spot but if this will keep the peace then I’ll allow it on two conditions.” he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk and held up two fingers. “My first condition: Don’t get caught. If you are caught, or suspected in any measure, I will wash my hands of this mess and let it fall on your head.”
Kakashi nodded. It was only fitting. But the second condition…
A mischievous gleam entered the man’s old eyes, and Kakashi would swear to his dying day Hiruzen Sarutobi looked like the cat that caught the canary. Knowing it was this, or Missing Nin status, he accepted.