Questionable Loyalty

A/N: And here it is, the new chapter. I hope you like it. Sorry, I couldn't resist but poke a little fun at the Akatsuki uniform, despite the seriousness of the situation.



Also: People, please, don't ask me to send you emails in order to notify you of updates. I visit university classes for 8-10 hours a day, study at home for 4 hours at least, and then spend two more hours writing the new chapters. I sleep a total of 4.5-5 hours a night. While I greatly appreciate your interest in my story, I have neither the time, nor the energy to send multiple emails. If you wish to know when this fic is updated, or if I have posted something else, put the url of my profile here on aff.net in your favourites and periodically click on the link. Thank you.



CHAPTER 17





Three days after his conversation with Itachi, Kakashi stood by the window and watched the thousands colourful lights of Amegakure flicker in the incessant rain. The sky was so dark with clouds heavy with rain that it seemed to be almost night, despite it actually being an early afternoon. The weather had been absolutely hideous for the past two days, though Kakashi thought that it kind of fit his own mood.



His cut and swollen hand traced the silhouettes of the buildings on the glass as his breath fogged it every few seconds while he thought about his predicament. After the initial mind-numbing shock and revulsion had passed, he had slipped into something close to a stupor, physically at least, because his mind kept turning over what was said and done, remembering his life before his capture.



He had always been firm in his beliefs about right and wrong, even if they weren’t always completely identical to what the official Konoha policy was. There had been a time when he had been a stickler for rules and a price had been paid for his foolishness, an ultimate price… and he hadn’t been the one to pay it.



Obito. Had Obito lived back then, in that doomed mission, would he have been killed by Itachi along with the others? Most probably. He would’ve lived only to die a few years later. And Kakashi would’ve been an accomplice in his death, even if not directly. An accomplice through his compliance with the very regime that had ordered those deaths.



Is this what it felt like to have your entire world from yanked under you? All of your belief that you had a vast moral superiority over your enemy, all of the conviction that you were fighting the good fight, that despite all its flaws and shortcomings, Konoha was better than so many other Hidden Villages – better than Kirigakure for example. Konoha did not kill its children in order to strengthen itself. Or so he had believed. What a joke.



In his many years of service to his Village, Kakashi had been faced with probably every possible human vice and flaw, both in allies and enemies alike. With time, he had learnt to ignore them, tolerate them, even use them against the people who possessed them. But nothing revolted him more than hypocrisy did. Open greed, sociopathy, violence, those things he had come to expect – they were the norm in their twisted little world. But hypocrisy? There were very few things and people a Ninja trusted and when one of those proved to be false, the hurt was all the greater. It infuriated him. Perhaps it was because all of his role-models had been such open, honest people, people who carried their hearts on their sleeves – his father, Obito, Sensei, Rin. Even Gai, in his own strange and slightly spastic way fit in that category.



Being who they were, Ninja, duplicity and backstabbing was part of their everyday life. Still, Kakashi had tried to avoid all that, to remove himself from all the lies. His superb abilities and battle and jutsu – and killing, consequently, allowed him to be mostly sent on missions which involved direct combat, rather than going deep under cover and being forced to lie to people – sometimes good people. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t had the strength to face the problem, like Obito had, like Gai did every single day. Kakashi chose to hide – behind a mask, behind a book, behind his own genius, behind haughty and withdrawn behaviour. He breezed through life, never letting anyone close enough to hurt him or close enough for him to need to lie to them. He had been a coward.



And here he was now, sitting in a locked room deep in the lair of Konoha’s greatest enemy, the glass tower of beliefs and ideals he had built around himself shattered by the words of a man who had slain his own parents. If it wasn’t so tragic, it would have been funny.



As he traced the glass with his finger Kakashi suddenly noticed a new reflection in it and sharply turned around to face a very familiar red-head. When had Pein entered his room? If Kakashi wasn’t so preoccupied with other issues, he would’ve felt deeply embarrassed at his momentous slip. As it was, all he said now was:



“Oh. It’s you.” And then he turned back to look out of the window.



Pein’s reflection leaned against the door behind him.



“It has been two days. I decided to come down here… and ask you if you have made any decision.”



Kakashi pressed his heated forehead against the cool glass and took a deep breath.



“There is no “I told you so?” he asked softly.



Pein shook his head:



“I don’t have the time or inclination to gloat. Besides, it’s unprofessional.”



“I am so tired.” Kakashi murmured, not realizing that he had said it out loud.



Pein suddenly moved, walking up soundlessly behind him and taking his injured hand in his, looking at the angry, puffy, oozing cuts.



“You should’ve told the servant girl who brought you food that you needed medical supplies.” He muttered. Kakashi shook his head.



“It doesn’t matter.” He looked down at his injured hand held in Pein’s grasp. It felt so very strange for someone, least of all this man, to touch him. One of the questionable qualities of wearing so many masks – physical and emotional – was that they intimidated people enough not to dare to initiate physical contact with him, unless they were trying to kill him, or, in Gai’s case, spar or otherwise engage in all sorts of strange contests which Kakashi participated in out of sheer boredom. The warm hands around his felt so strange, so alien, that the Jounin felt a shudder run down his back and to the tips of his fingers. He pulled away from the grasp and looked up.



“I have an answer for you.” He said. “The thought of participating in what you are proposing sickens me.”



He saw the man tense, his face draining of any emotion, the strange eyes turning to chips of grey ice. Kakashi ignored it and continued:



“However, what sickens me even more is being part of the same thing without my knowledge. It sickens me even more that we have objectified people enough that we are using children to kill their own parents. I cannot, I will not be part of an organization, an establishment, which perpetrates such deeds and then pretends to be all pure and righteous. I will…cooperate with your plan.”



It took a great effort on Kakashi’s part not to laugh out loud at the expression on the red-head’s face when he said that – his jaw literally went slack for a moment and he stared at him, obviously caught off guard. So, he wasn’t as untouchable as he liked to project. Kakashi carefully filed that information in his analytical mind to pick at for later.



After a few seconds Pein managed to smooth his face back into a calm, placid mask.



“These are most pleasing news.” He said and then added: “Welcome to Akatsuki.”



“I don’t want to wear the hat.” Kakashi told him flatly. “Or purple nail-polish.”



Pein blinked at him, once again caught off guard:



“Er, what?”



“The hats. With the bells. And the nail-polish. They make your operatives look like pimps. It’s enough that the cloak is as gaudy as it is.” Kakashi deadpanned.



The confusion on the red-head’s face morphed into what could only be described as a pout as his full lower lip jutted out in displeasure. Kakashi was beginning to suspect just who had designed those clothes. Despite the emotional turmoil he had gone through for the past few days, Kakashi once again felt amused. Pein’s words, however, immediately sobered him.



“You wouldn’t be wearing an uniform.” He informed him, composing himself once more.



“I wouldn’t?”



“No. We need you in Konoha.”



Now it was Kakashi’s turn to blink at him and when realization dawned on him, to frown at the red-head.



“You want me to spy on Konoha for you.” He said coldly. Pein only nodded.



Kakashi bit his lip and closed his eyes. What had he said about hypocrisy? That he hated it? And here he was – about to become a spy against his own people – the biggest hypocrite of all. Fool. His ears were ringing and he took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. Damn fool. Still, Pein was right – the only way to beat the current system was to fall to its own level and use its own methods against it. Not that this conclusion helped soothe Kakashi’s consciousness much.