Demons are two sided
Kanae stands beside her Uzume-baa-san, and watches as the group of shinobi (Not clan, not supposed to be here-) bows and the conversation, with one side shouting and the other talking, continues. All she hears is static.
So when her clan head asks for the opinion of the family, and her baa-san steps up, she clutches onto the sleeves of her shirt. If anything, she wants to have this, need this.
Her baa-san stops to look at her, and so did everyone except for that fucking Hatake-
Kanae pushes her shoulders up and back, no longer in the slight slouch she keeps, but with head tall and spine straight. If she wants to be respected, then she must be seen as worthy of it. Appearance is something weighty in this world.
So much can be assumed from a glance.
She needs to be seen as strong, as capable of this decision.
Please, she pleads in the privacy of her mind, please let this be enough to get her wish.
Kanae looks at her Clan head, but it is Anka that speaks up, Anka who has been calmed, who has friends who don’t judge or ask or assume, who has no ego to speak of but still carry that slight edge of steel given to her by a girl so much younger and wiser.
“Fugaku-sama.” She says, trying for mature determination, “let me, please.”
He hesitates, but not noticeably. Only the clan would even take note of it. “Are you sure, Kanae?”
She wants to scream, has been wanting to all day. But Anka is calmer than that. Anka doesn’t hurt her people through words or other things. She is Anka right now.
“I am his sister, blood and flesh, born from the same womb. If anyone gets a say in this, I do. Let me, Fugaku-sama.”
He seems to think it over, before nodding. She bows in appreciation.
She walks-stalks forward to the group of shinobi there. Kanae can feel the eyes of her clan on her back.
She keeps her head high, back straight. She can’t afford to look weak.
She nods her greeting to Aniki's sensei and his female teammate. Her smile is tight and tension must be apparent in her appearance, but Kanae couldn’t care less. Let them look. Anka keeps up a pretension anyway.
Hatake Kakashi. Jounin at 11. Killer for what? 5? 6 years? More?
Who knows?
He got Aniki killed. At 13.
But was he really responsible?
He was the jounin, he should have known better.
He is a child.
Is he? 11 is old.
Young. Too young. Civilians would be coddling him.
He isn’t a civilian.
Still a child, isn’t he?
Yes. But also a killer.
Aren’t we all?
And Kanae doesn’t know what to say to that, so she lets Anka be the calm one.
“Hatake-san.” Anka tries. He keeps his head bowed.
Perhaps I judged too soon after all. Look how vulnerable he is right now.
Quiet.
She frowns, but calls again, trying another name this time. “Kakashi-san.”
No reaction. She can faintly make out the other two silently freaking out. They look apprehensive, though only Nohara-san shows hers. Namikaze-san is too experienced to do something like that.
“Kakashi-san.” She tries one more time.
No reaction.
Too far inside his head, she supposes. Grief can do that to a person. Much more to someone with so much pride in himself. She won’t get him to react like this. Not as someone unfamiliar, not as something reminiscent of Uchiha Obito. Then… will authority get him to respond?
“Hatake Kakashi,” Anka says, voice calm and level, “look at me.” She made an order, and it got him to react.
At least he hasn’t been that broken. Though he would deserve it.
Don’t say things you don’t mean.
I do mean it.
Do you?
Shut up.
Hatake Kakashi looks… bad. His eyes are sunken, the purple under his eye from sleep deprivation very evidence, and the daze… It’s bad. His outfit is pristine, but she wonders how much of it was an effort of Nohara-san and Namikaze-san.
The boy is in shock, still. Anka judges. Kanae could care less.
“Show me.” Kanae demands, and Anka backs her up. He responds to the order.
He’s alright. Kanae thinks, watching him steadily take off the cloth obscuring Aniki’s eye.
He’s shaking. Anka notes, looking at the blown wide pupil and the slightest tremor in his shoulder.
Hatake Kakashi isn’t perfect, Kanae knows. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t blame him somewhat. It hurts to be without her Aniki.
And- oh. The sharingan. She stares.
How beautiful. Red as blood, scarlet like rose, deep deep hint of brown like rusting metal. Clear, like gems and glasses and dew on petals in the morning.
How tragic. An eye filled with shock and grief. Blank. But so full of life. How contradictory.
And Kanae can’t help but agree. She knows this man, somewhat. She knows he hates pity.
But better pity now than rage at a broken toy.
True.
She wants to touch it. Touch him. Examine the eye- his eye- more closely.
“Can I… touch it?” Unsurprisingly, her emotion still breaks through. Or is it that Anka let it through? Who knows?
His skin is smooth. She doesn’t care to touch the mask.
The eye- Aniki’s eye. She knows it as well as her own, having looked into it everyday, like she looks in the mirror. Obito’s are darker in tone, and colder in shade. More like coal and gray sky before the storm.
This eye is red, red, red. Red like blood from the cuts he would get. Red like the eyes of her cousins and aunts and uncles. Yet, different. Because this is Aniki’s eye. It’s different. Two tomoe, spinning slowly in a socket it doesn’t belong-
She pulls her forces back, having pressed harder than she wanted to.
The boy is not to blame. He is just the bearer of bad news.
I know.
Kanae pulls away before she can do something she will regret.
Why? Kanae wants to scream. But no one can answer that. Just like no one will respond to her desperate wish. No one except a boy long gone, left behind on a battlefield.
So instead, Kanae asked.
The answer shook her to the core.
Really? She thinks hysterically. As a gift. As a gift.
Kanae should be screaming at the foolish boy that is her Aniki, except he’s dead, and she can do no such thing.
Kanae settles for the slightly chilling breath she takes in, and the darkness she finds behind her eyelid. What a fool he was. A stupid, stupid fool. One who gives and gives and gives- and never falter, even with her darkness-
Her Aniki is a fool, and she loves him, and he’s dead.
It hurts to think of it, and she can practically feel her heart break into small pieces. For all that it was worth, he was Hers. Her Person, and that void within her soul can’t be covered up, ever. Kanae is now broken, and she knows.
When she opens her eyes, the world is sharp and she will forever remember the look on Hatake Kakashi’s face. There is grief, hidden beneath that mask, tucked into the corner of his eyes- eye. There’s a painful dose of self depreciation that makes her feel vindictive, but Kanae smushes that down. There’s surprise in the slight widening of his eye, and Kanae wonders why.
Words tumble out her mouth, facts she has hidden away like a little mouse and its food, little secret only she knows because he told her, trusted her with it. She loved being the only one to have those facts, to know him so well.
This time, he needs it more.
Sharingan- the sharingan of Uchiha - is both a blessing and a curse. With it, we can have much greater perception, and time seems to slow in our eyes. We can see every twitch of muscle, every slight difference. However, the worst part is the memory. Uchiha never forget. Our eyes record everything we see in great detail. The sharingan never allows us to forget.
Never.
Death and blood cling to our mind like nothing else in this profession. Being a shinobi is to fight, and just because we don’t want to remember doesn’t mean we would give up a strategic advantage.
In that light, perfect recalling doesn’t seem that good.
That is his eye. My Aniki’s eye. The only thing I have left of him and not even that. Because I don’t own it.
I would hate for all that he ever sees is pain and suffering and wounds and injuries and blood.
So I tell him and hope he takes it to heart. Hope he can recall the good even in the midst of the bad.
Kanae can only hope he doesn’t kill himself and the last vestige of her Aniki with him.