twenty-three
Kakashi rose to awareness slowly, blinking the black spots out of his eye. Chakra exhaustion was the absolute worst; his limbs felt like lead, his throat was dry and his brain was full of cotton wool. He’d think he’d learnt the consequences of overusing the Sharingan in the nearly fourteen years he’d been in possession of Obito’s eye but he couldn’t take Momochi Zabuza lightly, not with his team in danger.
They’d responded to serious combat better than he’d thought they would. Sakura hadn’t left Tazuna’s shadow the whole fight and Sasuke and Naruto held their own, if only barely. They hadn’t been ready for a real fight against the missing nin but they survived and that was enough in Kakashi’s book. Naruto especially had been a lot more skilled with his kenjutsu than he’d anticipated and his training with his bloodline limit really shone through. He could see the threat the blond was going to be in only a few years.
A blurry pink head appeared above him and he blinked at the shape, his vision slowly clearing to reveal the worried face of his sole female genin.
“Kakashi-sensei, are you okay?” she asked, green eyes scanning his form as if looking for new injuries.
“Mah, Sakura, have a little faith in your sensei,” he waved her off, hauling himself upright. He made a conscious effort not to let her see how much of a struggle it was. “Where are the others?”
“I haven’t seen them yet,” she shrugged, seeming to accept at he wasn’t about to drop dead. “Everyone woke up late today so I was helping Tsunami-san.”
Kakashi wasn’t surprised that the genin had slept in. The fight yesterday would have taken a lot out of them. Sasuke walked in the door, towelling off his hair before it could drip onto the wooden floor.
“Sasuke-kun!” Sakura blushed. “I didn’t see you this morning.”
“Not my fault that you all lazed about all morning,” Sasuke replied. “I got some training in with the dobe then went to clean up.”
Kakashi spied a white bandage peeking out from beneath Sasuke’s sleeve that hadn’t been there yesterday. There was also a bruise forming on his shin that his shorts couldn’t hide.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“Training,” Sasuke said shortly. “The dobe doesn’t hold back.”
“Where is Naruto now?”
Sasuke was interrupted by Tazuna bursting into the room.
“FIRE!” he waved his woven hat in the air like a victory flag. “Gatō’s dead!”
Kakashi leant forward abruptly, ignoring the pain at the movement.
“What?”
“Gatō’s dead!” Tazuna gleefully informed him. “His mansion caught fire and someone just confirmed the body. He’s dead! So are most of his men!”
That didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be a coincidence that they arrived in Wave and Gatō was killed only a few hours later. Zabuza had to still be recovering so he may have had less protection last night but it didn’t make sense for one of the villagers to suddenly find the courage to stand up to Gatō.
“Where’s Naruto?” he asked Sasuke again, urgency leaking into his tone.
“The dobe was outside last time I saw him.”
As if summoned by the sound of his name, Naruto stepped into the room, raising an eyebrow as all eyes turned to him. He took a moment to stare at the ecstatic Tazuna.
“Has the geezer been drinking already?”
“Gatō is dead!” Tazuna laughed.
Naruto blinked.
“Is that what everyone has been cheering about?” he crossed his arms. “Who got him?”
“Who cares!” Tazuna throw up his hands. “All that matters is that the rotten bastard is dead and the Land of Waves is free!”
Naruto looked over at Kakashi, as if seeking confirmation. Kakashi could only shrug in reply; he would have to find some crutches so he could verify for himself. He took the chance to look carefully over his genin. He couldn’t see any wounds or dark smudges; no ash or frayed clothing at could suggest his student had been near a fire recently. He couldn’t smell anything either. He couldn’t think of a single reason for Naruto to take down Gatō by himself and there wasn’t any obvious evidence to point towards him being responsible. There was nothing off about him so Kakashi didn’t know why he was getting this nagging feeling at the back of his mind.
“What about Zabuza and that Hunter nin?” Sakura asked worriedly.
“Their employer is dead and they can’t get paid,” Kakashi assured her. “They have no reason to keep going after Tazuna or the bridge.”
“Does that mean we have to go back to Konoha?”
Kakashi looked back at Naruto. The blond didn’t seem as thrilled at the news of Gatō’s demise as Tazuna. He knew from Gai that Naruto loved being out of the village so he probably wasn’t pleased that they might have to go straight home, especially after being told they would be away for at least two weeks.
“We were hired to protect the bridge while it was being built so we need to stick around until it’s finished,” Kakashi eye-smiled, catching the relief in Naruto’s eyes before it was quickly hidden. “We can continue with the training plan, even if Zabuza is no longer a problem.”
He pushed the blanket off of him.
“Tazuna-san, can you please find me a pair of crutches?” he asked politely. “I would like to look at Gatō’s mansion myself.”
It didn’t sit well with him not knowing who did this. There could be a third party they weren’t aware of.
“Are you sure you should be moving, Kakashi-sensei?”
He patted the top of Sakura’s hair gently.
“I will be fine, Sakura. Now, go help Tazuna-san find those crutches.”
It was a bit disconcerting to see a man of Tazuna’s age almost skip out of the room but Kakashi couldn’t exactly hold against the man. No one had been expecting for Gatō to die like this.
“You two,” Kakashi gestured to a quiet Naruto and Sasuke. “Did you hear anything last night?”
The pair shared a look.
“Nope,” Naruto shook his head. “Someone would have seen it though. If it was big a fire as Tazuna’s making it seem, people would have had to have seen something.”
He had a point there. What he didn’t know was why it taken so long for the news to reach them. Why hadn’t some sort of alarm been sounded during the night when the fire would have been more visible?
“We only woke up a couple of hours before Sakura,” Sasuke added. “It was already light and Tazuna and his family woke up after us.”
“Okay,” Kakashi nodded. “Go and see if anyone needs help in town. Things are sure to change quickly once people calm down.”
Sasuke nodded while Naruto threw him a mock salute and the two boys left the room. It was the most Naruto had spoken to him since their argument. He didn’t know what had invited this change but with how this mission was turning out, Kakashi was going to take what he could get. His first priority had to be finding out who had taken out Gatō. He needed to make sure there was nothing else that could threaten his team.
Naruto grinned as he breathed in the fresh, salty air. He’d been sailing since parting ways with Sasuke and planting the explosion seals on the other boats. It was a much bigger boat than the one Tazuna had snuck into Wave with but it was manageable. Naruto didn’t know how all the ropes and sails and shit worked but he’d managed to shove the sails into a position where it could catch some wind and pull him forward. He was prepared to use fūton to get him the rest of way there if the wind dropped but it seemed to hold steady for now.
There was only open water around him for miles so he was completely reliant on the compass to guide the way. From the maps he’d studied prior to leaving Konoha, he just had to keep going directly west to reach the collection of islands that made up the Land of Water. The ocean was weird after being surrounded by trees his whole life but it just fuelled the desire in him to leave the Land of Fire far behind him. He didn’t know what would be waiting for him in the Land of Water but he would manage. He could do this.
He’d had to ditch his orange hoodie and orange bandages, shoving them in a storage scroll at the bottom of his bag. He would have to stay away from orange for a while as much as it pained him. He was the only person he knew that liked the colour so it would be dead giveaway when they came looking for him. He now wore loose brown trousers, a black long-sleeve top and a threadbare brown vest. He’d left his hitai-ate back in Konoha. He never wore it so no one had noticed anyway. His swords were also safely sealed away. He would have to track down a less recognisable one so he could continue with his training.
He’d clumsily shaved his head soon after setting sail, figuring it was easier than dyeing it, and he’d covered the whisker marks on his cheek with thick sunscreen. It wasn’t great and he would have to find a better solution but it would do for now. He’d firmly tied a brown bucket hat he’s found lying around Tazuna’s house onto his head and he could confidently say he looked nothing like Uzumaki Naruto. He couldn’t change his eye colour but that wouldn’t be able to give him away, not with all the other changes he’d made. He could see the style in the Land of Water and adapt some things but he was pretty happy with the result.
This was going to work. He had thought about this from every angle; he’d been gathering supplies since the landlady had kicked him out. Sasuke would keep his mouth shut and his clone hadn’t been discovered yet and with the level of chakra exhaustion Kakashi had suffered, it might take days until he could sense something was off…or his clone would do something stupid and get itself dismissed. It didn’t really matter which one it was, as long it happened when Naruto was at least another couple of days away. He didn’t know how long it took to sail to the Land of Water but it couldn’t be more than a week and he had enough food stored for a month.
He took another deep breath, gazing at the passing waves. There was a whole world waiting for him outside the suffocating clutches of Konoha. He did feel a small pit of something in his gut, whether it was guilt or sadness at leaving behind the people he didn’t actually want to run away from but they weren’t enough to overpower his hatred of Konoha. They weren’t enough to erase all the voices that had insulted him, all the cold eyes that followed him the street, all the times he’d been kicked out of places.
There was nothing Konoha could do to fix the damage that had been done. There was nothing the Hokage could offer that would miraculously turn Naruto in a loyal Konoha shinobi. The Will of Fire that the old man had always talked about had been snuffed out a long time ago, leaving only a burning rage in its wake.
He was done with putting up with people’s shit. It was time to finally live the life that he chose. One far way from Konoha.
Sasuke lugged the massive stone over to the edge of the almost completed bridge. It was dull work but good strength training and the sooner they finished this damn bridge, the sooner they could go home and work on real training. They had made a lot of progress on the bridge in the past couple of days, even with Kakashi sitting on the side with his crutches. Now Gatō was gone, the villagers had offered to help with the bridge. Sakura had actually been pulling her weight and kept up a decent pace. Naruto’s clone had also kept up but Sasuke was just waiting for the technique to run out of chakra.
He’d never seen it maintained for this long and Naruto had said before he left that he didn’t actually know how long the thing would last. It was a matter of whether the clone would pop first or if Kakashi noticed. Kakashi was usually a lot better at recognising the clones back in Konoha when Naruto used to them to try and get out of the chores. Sasuke didn’t know if it was the chakra exhaustion or the fact he wasn’t expecting Naruto to use a clone on the mission or a combination of the two but he hadn’t said anything yet. Naruto had sailed away three nights ago and he hadn’t told Sasuke where he was heading, citing ‘plausible deniability’ so he had no idea where the blond could be by now.
He dumped the stone into place, shaking out his arm as he turned to grab another.
“You little shinobi sure are strong!” Tazuna grinned from where he was doing something to keep the stones together. “My men can hardly keep up.”
His ‘men’ were civilians that while admittedly strong from months of lugging around stones for the bridge, were still civilians. Sasuke could take on any of them of a bad day. He was managing even with the burns scattered beneath his clothing. They were nothing serious but they were damn annoying. They could be covered by his clothing so Kakashi hadn’t seen them and connected the dots. They hadn’t been able to escape Gatō’s place totally unscathed but it was still a good result overall. Kakashi didn’t suspect them even after he went over the mansion himself and Zabuza hadn’t turned up to kill them for taking out his money source.
“My cute little genin are the best,” Kakashi agreed and Sasuke ground his teeth together. He hated that dumb term Kakashi used for them.
The Naruto clone threw Kakashi a glower; at least the clone was still in character. The stone slipped through the clone’s fingers and he yelped, jumping away from the stone block and just barely avoiding the hit that would blow it out of existence. It was honestly a miracle the clone had lasted this long.
“At this rate, we’ll be finished in a few days,” Tazuna continued, the cheer rising around him at the announcement. “We’ll be back on the map and can start trading.”’
“It feels like we’ve been away from Konoha for ages,” Sakura commented, a few wisps of pink head sticking to her forehead. “Are all C-ranks like this?”
She directed the last question at Kakashi.
“Not really,” he admitted, eye-smiling. “This would be more equivalent to a B-rank; an A-rank if someone hadn’t killed Gatō since Zabuza would have kept coming after us.”
“C-ranks are only a small step up from D-ranks,” the Naruto clone added. “It’s basically chores but outside the village.”
Sasuke hauled up the next stone, ignoring his team. The Naruto clone had picked up their own stone and dropped it in the right spot, dusting his hands off onto his trousers.
“Look out!”
The clone couldn’t react in time and Sasuke watched it disappear into a cloud of white smoke with a ‘pop’ as a bucket swung through where its head had been. They were usually more durable than that when Naruto made only one but it had been a few days. Kakashi lurched forward out of the corner of his eyes, seeming to forget about the crutches. Sasuke dumped the stone he was carrying at his feet, preparing for the aftermath.
“Why is he using a clone?” Sakura asked innocently. “The bridge work isn’t that bad.”
Sasuke watched the emotions flicker across Kakashi’s too fast to keep track and braced himself as the jounin snapped his head to him, dark grey eye furious. Sasuke vowed that the next time he saw the dobe, he would deck him for leaving this mess in Sasuke’s lap.
Naruto popped out of existence and Kakashi’s world stopped for a second. A clone. A kage bunshin. How had he not noticed? How the fuck had he not noticed? How long had he been gone?
His chakra exhaustion was bad but he didn’t think it was ‘unable to detect kage bunshin’ bad! Naruto had spent weeks using his clones to get out of D-ranks and Kakashi had been able to find them every time. How hadn’t he noticed?
Logically, he knew there were a few factors. His chakra exhaustion, the fact he hadn’t been expecting it, the whole Gatō mystery but he was still a jounin of Konoha. He should have fucking noticed when one of his genin replaced himself with a damn clone! He turned to look at an unsurprised Sasuke and felt the fury bubble in his chest. He would bet the pay for an S-rank mission that Sasuke knew about this; and he didn’t tell Kakashi. He didn’t try to stop him. He kept his mouth shut and let his teammate defect from the village. There was a faint hope that Naruto merely wanted to escape the mundane manual labour but Kakashi could feel the truth in his bones. Naruto had finally defected from Konoha.
He held up his hand and summoned Pakkun and the rest of the pack, feeling the drain heavily on his meagre reserves.
“Find Naruto. Now.”
They understood the level of urgency and took off. Kakashi knew it was a bit futile. They couldn’t follow the scent across the water and they were on a damn island. There was little to no chance that Naruto hadn’t sailed away but he had to cover his bases.
“Sasuke,” he snapped, limping down the bridge.
The Uchiha reluctantly followed him until they were a safe hearing distance from the civilians.
“What do you know?”
Sasuke crossed his arms.
“Why would I know anything about what that dobe does?”
“Enough, Sasuke,” Kakashi ordered. “This isn’t the time. Your teammate has defected. Do you realise how serious this is?”
Sasuke shuffled uncomfortably but maintained the eye contact.
“He’s probably just trying to get out of the bridge work.”
“He will be labelled a missing nin. They will send ANBU after him and they may kill him if he refuses to come back. That doesn’t even take into account the foreign nin that will be after him if word gets out.”
“Why would anyone care?” Sasuke argued. “He’s just a genin.”
Kakashi’s teeth clicked as he shut his mouth. He couldn’t tell him about the Kyūbi. No one outside of Konoha should know but it was horribly kept secret within the village walls and Kakashi wasn’t naïve enough to believe that it hadn’t made it out of the confines of the village.
“He is still a shinobi on Konoha and genin or not, he is a missing nin,” Kakashi stressed. “Tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know anything!” Sasuke snapped, irritated. “He didn’t tell me where he was going.”
“So you knew he was leaving?”
Sasuke remained silent and Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Sasuke, you aided and abetted; that is also a crime.”
This only seemed make things worse.
“I told you, he didn’t tell me shit,” Sasuke scowled. “I knew about the clone but I thought he was just trying to get out of work. I didn’t know he was going to run.”
The kid was lying through his teeth but there was nothing Kakashi could do without the help of a Yamanaka. He had to tell the Hokage about Naruto but he would keep quiet about Sasuke for now. The Uchiha knew something but Kakashi didn’t want to put him through the stress of an interrogation and there was a small part of him that was proud of him. It was wrong considering the situation but factoring in how anti-teamwork both Naruto and Sasuke were, them supporting each other like this was good in a very bad way. It was biting him in the ass right now. He was going to be in so much trouble for losing him.
“Shit,” he swore, running a hand aggressively through his hair. “We need to retrace his steps. We need to find him.”
“We don’t know how long he was replaced with a clone,” Sasuke pointed out unhelpfully.
“We know he was the real one after the fight with Zabuza,” Kakashi replied. “The earliest it could have been was that night.”
Dots connected.
“The night Gatō died in the fire.”
Kakashi zeroed in on the bandage that still covered Sasuke’s upper arm. He reached forward and although Sasuke tried to resist, he was no match for a pissed off Kakashi. He ripped the bandage off to see a small burn. It was starting to heal; maybe three days old.
“What did you two do?”
“I burned myself on the stove in the kitchen,” Sasuke spat back and Kakashi was tempted to throw the frustrating little shit into the sea. He still didn’t get how serious this was.
Even with that revelation, he couldn’t think of a single reason for the two genin to go rogue and murder Gatō. Their mission had been to protect Tazuna and the bridge so it could very technically still fall into the mission parameters but it felt like it came from nowhere. A distraction for Naruto? He could think of at least three better ways of doing that.
Every fibre of his being wanted to chase after Naruto right this second he couldn’t leave Sakura and Sasuke alone in a foreign country and he was still recovering his chakra. Naruto would have known that. Naruto also knew that the chakra exhaustion would have made it harder for Kakashi to detect the kage bunshin. This was too well planned; how long had he been waiting for the opportunity? Was this why he was so adamant about getting a C-rank mission?
The pieces kept falling into place and with every dot connected, Kakashi felt more and more like an idiot. How had he not seen this? In hindsight, it was so obvious. Oh gods, what would Minato-sensei and Kushina-nee think? Their son was so unhappy in the village they died to protect that he ran off and Kakashi was too incompetent to stop him. He was pulled from his spiralling thoughts by the taps of paws against stone.
“He’s not on the island,” Pakkun reported, panting. “We lost his scent by the boats.”
“He’s probably taken one,” Kakashi sighed. “Gatō wasn’t using them anymore.”
Was that why he killed the tyrant? He turned back to Sasuke.
“We are not done,” he warned him. “You are on probation until further notice. Don’t speak to anyone unless I give you permission. Go back to work until I figure something out.”
Last thing he needed was someone figuring out the Uchiha had been on it and then he’d be dealing with two traitor genin. He’d leave the kid his denial. Naruto was infamous enough for his distaste for teams and people his own age that people would believe he didn’t tell his teammates anything. Sasuke glared at him but did as instructed, making his way back to the group of curious workers. Sakura stepped forward to ask him something Kakashi couldn’t hear from this distance but Sasuke ignored her, picking up the stone he had dropped and resuming his work.
“What are you going to do?”
“We need to leave,” he replied. “Tazuna will be fine since Gatō is dead and this takes priority. We need to go back to Konoha. I can’t track him down with genin with me. I need you to go ahead and tell the Hokage.”
“Are you sure?” Pakkun asked. “You’d be turning the pup in. The Hunter nin won’t take it easy on him.”
“I know,” Kakashi sighed. “The Hokage will want him alive though and he’ll be safer in Konoha. He’ll be angry and miserable but he’ll be alive. We can figure things out from there.”
This was a nightmare. He’d only had the kid for a few months; how had Gai dealt with him for three years?
Gai.
“Gai is going to be devastated,” he whispered, feeling a bit sick.
He’d failed his teacher, his pseudo-sister and his friend. He’d also failed Naruto. His teaching had to be one of the things to drive the kid away. It certainly hadn’t been enough to make him stay.
“One problem at a time,” Pakkun place a paw on his leg in an attempt to ground him.
“Yeah,” Kakashi adjusted the crutches. “You head to Konoha. I’ll follow with the genin as soon as I can.”
Pakkun nodded and Kakashi dismissed the rest of the pack. He turned to limp back to the group. Time to break the news to Sakura and Tazuna.