Smoke, sweat, and alcohol
There was something about the way the rain glittered in the light from the lanterns outside the bar that was almost hypnotic. It was around about the fifth or sixth drink of the night that Kakashi generally found himself standing outside staring at it, the clean scent of rain and cold evening air, a much needed relief from the choking press of alcohol, and smoke and humanity inside. Not that he disliked the warm alive chaos of the inside, just, it did become overwhelming after a while, and sometimes he needed a moment to breathe.
Gai was of course still inside. He partied the same way he did everything else, with great enthusiasm and monstrous stamina. Kakashi smiled a little behind his mask as he heard Gai challenging all comers to a no holds barred drinking contest. Sensible people wouldn’t take him up on that challenge, but then Shinobi were not, on the whole sensible people.
A sensible person might have chosen to go home at this point. The edges of the world, were, after all, starting to become slightly fuzzy, and he was feeling a little too honest for comfort. But then, Kakashi was shinobi right down to the bone, and he really wasn’t cut out for sensible. Instead he went back in, to watch Gai drinking people who really should have known better under the table.
Gai was so bright. Warm, in a way that the horrors of their profession could never quite touch. In many ways Gai was the truest example of a Konoha ninja there was. Ridiculous, and crazy, and kind, and strong where it mattered the most.
That was why, as the night wound down, and he and Gai staggered home, leaning on each other for balance, as the ground tilted beneath them, Kakashi wasn’t surprised when Gai spoke seriously to him.
“Your students have been good for you.” He said, perceptive even through the haze of alcohol.
“Aa.” Kakashi admitted, drunk enough himself to be unguarded. “I suppose they have. It’s been a learning process for all of us.”
“Well said my Rival. Of course the best teachers should always strive to learn from their students.” Gai beamed, with a slightly uncoordinated thumbs up.
“Of course.” Kakashi said, caught slightly off balance by the praise. It was startling and not a little depressing how unfamiliar it felt, to be praised for something that was the opposite of destruction. Gai must have caught the dark turn of his thought because his voice was steady and unwavering when he spoke again.
“You’re good for them too, Kakashi. Never doubt that.” Gai looked him in the eye as he said it, and Kakashi had to supress the urge to look away.
“It’s not really our job to be good for them though is it? Jounin senseis are there to turn children into killers. We’re not meant to be good for them. We’re meant to be bad for them in very specific ways.” It probably wasn’t something a Konoha nin would have said out loud, but Gai was a good enough friend not to hold it against him.
“Maybe so.” Gai said, plainly, without judgement. “But we can try to be good for them anyway.” Then he smiled, wide and bright. “The good Jounin senseis try to be good for them anyway, because they care, because they’re human enough to try. And I know you’re one of the good ones.”
“Some would say I was barely human at all.” Kakashi smiled cold and empty, all the way up to the eyes.
“You are good for them my Rival. You try your best, you keep them alive, and you remind them to be human first. It’s the best any of us have to offer.” And Gai’s smile cracked a little then, almost imperceptible, but Kakashi wasn’t the copy ninja for nothing and he spotted it. It was surprising. But Kakashi thought then of Gai’s students, in their own ways as fractured and fragile as his own. The students that Gai had wanted so very badly, that he had trained so devotedly. The students Gai had held back from the chuunin exams, despite what must no doubt have been a significant amount of pressure to enter them as soon as legally possible. Maybe Kakashi wasn’t the only one worried about whether or not he was good for his students.
“You’re good for them too Gai.” He said, with the kind of urgent honesty he rarely indulged in. “You’re probably the best thing that could have happened to those kids.”
That declaration was of course met with an excess of hugs, and tears, and declarations of youthful rivalry, but Kakashi couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not when a warm and unidentifiable feeling that he might almost call happiness was rising in his chest.
Drinking with Gai always made the world seem like a better place.
…
Naruto had never realised how deep the truth could cut. All the more so, because there were no real surprises in what Sakura and Sasuke had put together for him.
It was all so very obvious, when the known facts were all laid out together, so obvious and yet he hadn’t seen it, none of them had seen it. Of course they wouldn’t have put the Kyuubi into any random baby, that wasn’t how hidden villages thought.
Uzumaki, that had been the key, or part of it. Uzumaki, and a careful consideration of the dates, had got them the name of only one Konoha ninja alive and of an age to be his mother. Uzumaki Kushina, and they might have stopped there because certainly she had been notorious enough to explain the secrecy, but… Sasuke had been suspicious. He thought there was more to it than that, had pointed out that there was no particular connection between Jiraiya and Uzumaki Kushina to explain why he was so concerned with Naruto. Sasuke had been suspicious, and everyone knew, that when clan brats were suspicious about bloodlines it paid to take note. After all, clans trained their members to spot the discrepencies in that sort of thing.
“If Kushina was your mother then who was your father.” Sasuke had said, considering. “He must have been important, and the way Jiraiya looks at you, the two of you must have looked at least a little alike.” Then Sasuke had gone very pale and got up abruptly from the kitchen table where they’d been looking over records.
Naruto and Sakura had shared a confused glance, as Sasuke dashed up the stairs, and they could hear the sounds of furniture moving in a room they had never known Sasuke to willingly enter.
A part of Naruto dearly wished he could come up with a solid practical justification to convince Sasuke to move out of the Uchiha compound, or at least out of the house where his family had died. It wasn’t good for him, being surrounded by all those ghosts. Naruto had dark suspicions some of the stains on the woodwork might be blood. No-one should have to live with that kind of reminder.
But every time he or Sakura tried to raise the subject, Sasuke countered by pointing out that the security seals on the compound as a whole, and on the clan head’s house specifically, were too useful to just abandon. He was right of course, and Kakashi sensei’s lessons had left them in no doubt that Sasuke probably did need the protection of those seals, but still. Naruto couldn’t help but think there had to be a better answer.
Sasuke’s return with a dusty photo album had cut short that train of thought though, and after looking at what Sasuke was trying to show him, he wondered if rather than moving Sasuke out, he might not need to move in. The homemade traps on his own apartment suddenly felt horribly inadequate.
“Our mothers knew each other I think.” Sasuke said softly, rather than launching straight into the main point. By Sasuke’s standards it was shockingly considerate. “Look at all the photos, they must have been friends. I remember my mother showing me this album before… Anyway I remembered seeing these pictures, and I wondered, and look, how many blonde haired ninja are there in Konoha.” The picture was of a dark haired woman that Naruto vaguely recognised as Sasuke’s mother, along with a wickedly grinning redhead that looked like every description they’d managed to dig up of the Uzumaki, and, one other person.
A blonde man, with a long suffering look on his face that didn’t quite cover the laughter in his eyes, and Naruto knew that face, they all did, it was in every one of their history books, it was carved into the mountainside overlooking the village.
Sakura’s eyes were wide, hands covering her mouth in shocked realisation, and it all made far too much sense. Everyone knew the Yondaime had been Jiraiya of the sannin’s student, had even shared his summons. And, Sasuke was right, the Yamanaka aside there really weren’t that many blonde ninja in Konoha. Now that he was looking Naruto could see the resemblance, and he wondered how many people had been able to put the pieces together just by looking at him.
Sasuke put up with the frozen silence for a couple of minutes before speaking up.
“Take that stupid look off your face idiot. It’s not like this changes anything.” He snapped. With a look that declared Naruto was not allowed to be the emotionally unstable one on their team. From Sasuke, it was practically a declaration of eternal friendship, and that was enough for Naruto to shake the shock in favour of grabbing Sasuke for a hug.
“You mean that.” Naruto beamed, and Sasuke was struggling, but not seriously, and really what did the past matter anyway. “I knew you loved us really.” He declared, Sasuke’s struggling intensified briefly but then after few moments stopped entirely, as he relaxed into Naruto’s hold just a little.
“Hn” He said, and it was the closest Sasuke had ever come to admitting they were all friends. From the quiet smile Sakura shot him over Sasuke’s shoulder she hadn’t missed that one either. It made every terrifying truth they’d just learned worth it.
…
“There’s been interesting rumours coming in from Suna.” Shikamaru said. To outside eyes he must have looked fully focused on the game in front of him, but by this point Sakura knew better. Shikamaru was a Nara right down to the bone, and no Nara would ever be caught dead thinking about less than five different things at a time.
“Oh.” She said, soft and polite, like Ino had taught her what felt like a lifetime ago. She’d never had much of a talent for Kunoichi work, but enough had stuck that she knew what a deadly weapon good manners could be in the right hands. “Do tell. I’ve been out of the loop for a while.”
“The rumour is that Sabaku no Gaara has put his name in the running for Kazekage.” Shikamaru moved his gold general, and Sakura hissed a little at the trap she’d just fallen into. That was interesting news though, and for more than the political implications.
“He was crazy before Naruto got to him. The bad kind, not the useful kind.” She pointed out, Shikamaru had been near enough to the action that he must have a vague idea of what went down. The question was, how many other people knew that Naruto’s talent with people was good enough to talk down that kind of insanity.
“Hmm, yes. Everyone is very curious about what happened to knock the reason back into him. It’s a shame that no-one who knows anything is talking.” From anyone else, that might have been a threat, but Shikamaru she wasn’t too worried about. There was too little for him to gain, for it to be worth risking their alliance. She made her move and then leaned back casually.
“I suppose that’s one of life’s great mysteries then. You think he stands a chance of winning?” Shikamaru considered the board.
“If he can convince the elders he’s stable, probably. He’s powerful, and he’s got the right bloodlines for it.” He slid a piece sideways.
“Reckon that would work in Konoha?” She asked, as she dropped a piece onto the board. She could see from the slight widening of Shikamaru’s eyes that she had his attention.
“That depends. What did you have in mind?” He was wary, as he should be, but he wasn’t turning her down flat.
“Nothing set in stone yet.” She replied honestly, “Just, considering options. It’s always good to know what cards you can play.”
“You thinking of moving into poker now?” Shikamaru asked with eyebrows raised.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t considered it.” He smiled crookedly in acknowledgement as he moved his dragon.
“I do like games. Not sure I’m ready for the big leagues yet.” Neither are you, was the unspoken warning.
“Ah well. Sometimes games get sprung on us unexpectedly.” He looked up at that, in barely contained alarm.
“Sakura.” He said, and she smiled wryly.
“You know, Ino has very pretty hair. I never thought about it when I was little, it was just how Ino was, but it’s actually pretty unusual isn’t it. Just the Yamanaka really, and maybe a couple of others.” She slid her knight forward and past his defences. She could see the pieces clicking together in his mind. He caught the implications a lot quicker than she and her teammates had, hi expression cycling through shock, and realisation, and concern so quickly she barely caught it before it settled on understanding.
“Pretty hair can get you in nearly as much trouble as pretty eyes if you’re not careful hmm.” He dropped a general as she nodded.
“Yeah. I think Kakashi sensei is on top of it but…” She trailed off, there was really no need to finish that sentence. Shikamaru was a clan head’s son, the son of the jounin commander, he knew all too well how quickly the balance of power could shift in a hidden village. He sighed a little at that.
“Ah well. I suppose this was inevitable. I really had hoped to relax a little longer before I started to play seriously. Your team really are troublesome you know.”
“You don’t need to tell me that. I’m stuck with the idiots.” She moved her bishop but she knew it wouldn’t be enough, and Shikamaru grinned.
“I hear Asuma sensei and Kakashi sensei are taking us all out together soon.” He said, as he closed the net. Sakura smiled wryly. It had at least taken him a little longer to beat her this time.
“I believe I lose.” She bowed in resignation. “No doubt there will be plenty of opportunities for a rematch on our upcoming trip.”
“I look forward to it.” And for all the games they played, she knew there was no lie or dissemblance in his anticipation.