Baby Steps, Bloody Steps
Kakashi left the Hokage's office too immersed in his thoughts like to notice the presence of her new apprentice walking slightly behind him. The Sandaime's words repeating themself in his head like an old record without stopping, making him feel agitated, infuriated and lost. It wasn't only about what Kakashi was considering an early retirement, but the request itself.
Hiruzen had asked him, Hatake Kakashi, perhaps, the most incapable man in the Village, to be an instructor. To take care of an orphan ballet dancer and make of her a Kunoichi, and if like all of that wasn't enough, she should become a lethal weapon out of nothing. As if Konoha wasn't full of kunoichis capable of fighting in any battlefield practically since they were born.
Kakashi was so immersed in his thoughts that he didn't realize that they were already walking through the streets of the Village, that, as usual, his hands were in his pockets. He didn't notice either that the midday sun was hurting his one visible eye and that for the very first time, in many, many years, his friends, always seated in the same spot, didn't yell at him any invitation for lunch. Instead, Azuma, Kurenai and Guy had a sense of pity in them, impossible to avoid, oblivious to the world around him or not, thanks to sharp senses and courtesy of a Sharingan he didn't ask but was grateful anyways.
Kakashi felt a slight bump against his back and realized he was at the front door of his building. Behind them was his home, a small apartment mixed with the ones that belonged to many civilians he couldn't quite recognize, but they all could recognize him instead. Kakashi shook his head, and suddenly he remembered the bump. He slowly turned on his heels.
"What are you doing here?" Kakashi asked, narrowing his eye.
"This is where I live now, the Hokage said... ", Tiān'é answered almost in a whisper. Kakashi opened his mouth even under his mask, and it was evident even for the girl, "not with you, Kakashi Sensei..."
"Please don't." He only answered, looking over her head. God, she was so short.
"But..." Tiān'é began to protest, "I don't have anywhere else to go, I'll be taking the apartment below yours, the Sandaime said it was empety." Her words were rushed.
"Stop", Kakashi commanded, "No Sensei, no sempai, no honorifics at all... This is not... I mean... Actually, I don't know what this is, so, please." He was almost pleading, and Kakashi wasn't used to plead.
"Hatake Sama then?" Was she trying to make a joke, or did she know something that he didn't just to bother him? It was almost hurting.
"That was my father", he stated as nothing. She blushed. "See you at nine, it has to be dark", and just like that, he poofed away, and Tiān'é was left there explaining to no one that indeed, she was just trying to make a joke.
Kakashi entered his home and went straight to the kitchen to prepare some tea while having a shower. He wasn't in the mood for eating as it had been in the last few months. He was losing some weight, he could see it in the mirror, though accordingly to the doctors at the hospital, a place that felt like home lately, besides the multiple and repetitive injuries, he was fine and healthy and didn't have any disorder; he just needed to have some rest and left anxiety behind. So maybe this was all about having more relaxing tasks in hand than killing people around.
Kakashi tried to sleep. He was supposed to meet the girl by nine pm, and he still had good long hours till that moment. He put down the curtains, and the small room was swollen by darkness. Oh, darkness, lovely, lonely and embracing darkness. He was able to enter a soft slumber when something caught his attention. There were noises in the apartment below, so it was true that it had been empty for a while now, and he didn't even notice until today.
Kakashi put all his senses to work. No, he wasn't interested in the girl; he just needed to know what was he dealing with. "She has to be like a cat, inviscible, noisless", Hiruzen said. Well... It wasn't working; the girl was noisy, or maybe he had a very trained ear, but she was making noises for sure. He had higher expectations for a dancer. At least, that was the idea he had on ballet: tiny little dolls jumping here and there almost soundless and graciously with no gestures at all. Were they even happy with what they were doing?
He could smell her too, peaches... That wouldn't work either if she had to be imperceptible, but then again, maybe it was just him and his terrible developed sense of smell, and once again, the Sandaime's words echoed in his head.
"She has to learn to be a deceiver. She has to learn the tools of a woman, how to use seduction and sex, you know how it works".
So maybe the peaches thing wasn't that bad if she could hide it wisely from time to time, and suddenly Kakashi felt disgusted. Almost about to throw up.
"You know how it works."
Of course, Kakashi knew how the shinobi world worked, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Luckily for him, he never had to change his body for information, and he never laid with women or men just for the greater good of a mission. He didn't know why those were never his tasks. Maybe he wasn't good enough, sexy enough, or likeable enough, but it could be said that he was a sex mission virgin, and he was grateful for that. Kakashi witnessed what that kind of operations made to his fellow's shinobis. They slowly lost a substantial part of themself fragmenting their heart and soul. Turning them into sex puppets without colours in their eyes, perfect machines adapted to please other persons pleasures and Konoha's safety. Meanwhile, he was just the cold-blooded killer, the one whose hands were full of who knows who blood and no feelings at all at the moment of finishing enemies and missions. He was fragmenting too, but he was unaware of it.
Nine o'clock came quickly and without rest for Kakashi. He spent the whole day thinking about the girl that he was about to train and at the same time to condemn. His sincere advice could be run, you idiot, but he was a shinobi of Konoha and still an Anbu, so he only walked lazily to the training camp. As a show of decency, he only arrived ten minutes later than the time set, and she was already there. Kakashi took his time observing her.
Tiān'é was short, like really, really short, Kakashi could confirm that. Her long dark hair was now braided and a bit sweaty, which meant that she was already moving. She had dark blue eyes and a plain chest, and that wasn't going to work, and he punished himself for that thought. Of all the things the task included making her a sex machine was what he hated the most. First, because she was a person, not a tool and second because even he wasn't a... well... Oh, how much he wished to be Genma right now. She had good legs, though, pretty well-shaped, with muscles even; Kakashi was sure they could be lethal in more than one sense with the proper training. Her arms were too lax, but then again, it was all about training.
Kakashi saw her dance. It was nothing to do with fighting, far from it, but there in her leotard and Anbu trousers and strange slippers, he saw the potential that the Sandaime had seen too. There was no more time to observe.
"Yo!" Kakashi greeted Tiān'é as if he hadn't been there watching her from afar.
"Oh..." She began, "I'm sorry, Sensei, I thought the training was at nine..." She was blushing. "I'm sorry I got here early."
"What have I told you?" Kakashi asked, grabbing her by her arm a bit too strong taking her to the wooden dummy.
"To be here at nine so it was dark but..." Kakashi was positioning her in front of the dummy, spreading her legs with his own foot a bit.
"No..." Kakashi said, looking at her posture, "spread your legs at the whide of your shoulders," he continued.
"I don't think you said that" Tiān'é was dumbfounded.
"Of course not," He answered drily. "I said..." now he was raising her arms, "No Sensei, just Kakashi."
"Ok...", Tiān'é finished full of doubts looking at the dummy, "What do we do now?"
Eager, Kakashi Thought.
"Bent your knees a bit", he instructed, and she obeyed no without feeling ridiculous. "That thing you were making with your arms..." Kakashi continued after rechecking her posture.
"Were you watching me?" She asked incredulously, straightening again.
"Hey!" Kakashi corrected, "eyes on the dummy, and don't change the posture" he kindly accommodated her again, "I wasn't watching you. I saw ballet before", he lied, " Do that thing you do with your arms as if you were dancing with the sticks on the dummy". Maybe he could be a good instructor.
Long hours passed before Kakashi felt that it was enough training for the night; he could feel the cold breeze running through his sleeveless arms. One of the perks of being half Anbu, half not, was that he didn't have to use the complete uniform anymore.
"Yo!" He called the girl that from afar looked exhausted, "came, seat here," Kakashi invited her, patting the fresh grass. Tiān'é obeyed; she was walking funny, though.
"What the hell..." Kakashi spoke louder than he would like to.
"What?" Tiān'é asked in horror.
"Your feet", Kakashi pointed at them, "I...I only made you step in front of the dummy and..." This was so not going to work.
"This blood?" Tiān'é smiled sadly, "You've never seen a dancer before lier."
"No...well...yes...but" Kakashi, always so collected and now so without words astonished by some blood.
"Do you want to see them?" she asked modesty, almost ashamed. Kakashi only said yes with his head.
The vision was terrible. Tiān'é's feet were terribly injured, and they were almost deformed. Her nails, her toes, even the slippers were stained with blood. He was used to seeing blood, a lot of blood, but she was supposed to be a doll, and she was obviously in pain; he knew pain and his many faces.
"It's ok Kakashi, it's the dancer's life," she said, reassuring him, "you have your shinobi things and secrets, and painful moments, we dancers have ours."
"Does it hurts?" He asked.
"Every day", Tiān'é answered honestly, smiling. "And those? Do they hurt?"
"Not anymore", Kakashi lied, because actually, he didn't know what hurt the most if the scars in his body or the wounds in his insides.
"Lier".