Entropy

Author's Note: Holy cow! I never, ever dreamed it would take me so long to come back to Entropy! For a time, I thought I'd outgrown the fandom and I'd never finish the story, despite my constant vows to finish it. I think, after this long period of reflection, that it's partly true. By and large, I don't give Naruto much thought any more. However, I still want to finish this story. I know my writing has changed somewhat over the past *gulp* year since I've worked on Entropy. My ideas for the story have also changed. I did a reread of everything I've done so far in this story, and I was really amazed and happy that, when I got to the end, I wanted to work on it more.

 

I encourage you to go back and re-read, because you've probably forgotten everything by now. I know I myself forgot a lot of the details...

 

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Panting hard, Sasuke dropped out of the trees.  Black fire raged behind him; the targets Kakashi and he had set up were incinerated, and still the fire burned.



"Good," said Kakashi. "Now call it back."



Sasuke grunted, and his chakra coiled tightly. The fire wavered, but sprang back up again as soon as Sasuke blinked.



"I can't," he said.



"Try again," said Kakashi.



Though what Kakashi wanted most was to tell Sasuke he could take a break and try again later, Sasuke needed to learn to control the Amaterasu. He had made leaps and bounds in his progress already, but he still struggled to stop the fire once it was burning. Sasuke had to call the fire back to him consciously, instead of being forced into a desperate, unconscious reaction as he had been in the past.



"I'm waiting, Sasuke," said Kakashi.



Sasuke glared at him, but it lacked strength. Kakashi could tell that their training this morning had drained Sasuke.



"If you have the energy to look at me like that, you can handle the fire," said Kakashi.



Sasuke turned his glare on the target area. The flames there shrank gradually, dwindling.  Sasuke clenched one hand into a fist. Kakashi held himself back, even when Sasuke's eye started to bleed from the effort. Sasuke could handle this, Kakashi told himself. He fought the urge to move closer to Sasuke and offer his support.



Finally, with one last little flare, the black fire went out. Sasuke closed his eyes, then, and wiped his face with the edge of one sleeve. Kakashi's heart started to slow down. That had been too close for comfort. Perhaps they ought to scale back, just a bit. Then Kakashi shook himself. Sasuke wouldn't let himself ease up; he was single-minded in his attempts to prove his mastery, and would never agree to even a minute less of training each day, no matter the physical costs.



"All right," said Kakashi. "Go clean up."



He hesitated, gave in to the impulse to physically reassure Sasuke, somehow. He allowed his hand to, ever so briefly, touch Sasuke's shoulder.



"You did well," he said.



"Mmm," said Sasuke. "I can do better."



"Sasuke," said Kakashi. "Don't rush this. It will come, in time."



The way Sasuke frowned said it all. Sasuke never had had much in the way of patience. Kakashi smiled.



"I know," said Kakashi. "But you've improved a lot already in such a short time."



Kakashi didn't say anything about Sasuke pushing too hard, but he got the feeling that Sasuke knew he was thinking it.



"I'll do better," said Sasuke. "Tomorrow."



Kakashi nodded and moved a little further away, not so close now that he felt the need to touch.



"Tomorrow," he said. "But now, you need to wash up. Rest. Have something to eat."



He knew it was too much to even try to order Sasuke to relax. But Sasuke simply turned too-sharp eyes on him and nodded as if Kakashi had said it aloud. It made Kakashi want to smile.



Sasuke washed first, and then Kakashi was free to shower away the dust and sweat and fear. The training was hard work, but it was going steady and, moreover, it was going positively. Sasuke didn't have any big blowouts; the black flames of the Amaterasu didn't consume them both—and the woods too—in a hellish explosion. Things were going well and Kakashi didn't want to jinx it.



They ate a late lunch. Kakashi studied the bruises that marched over Sasuke's flesh. They were green and yellow, fading fast and no longer an impediment to the basic flow of Sasuke's chakra. Sasuke had always had a large reserve to draw on, but it seemed like he had more than ever before. Kakashi wasn't sure that he could chalk it up, entirely, to Sasuke's more economical use of his energy.



Though Sasuke's chakra had returned to its normal patterns with no hint of a problem, Kakashi was not one hundred percent convinced that the Amaterasu was all there was to Sasuke's sudden chakra problems. Presumably, Sasuke had had the Amaterasu for a long time now, and yet it was only very recently that he had had trouble controlling it. Something nagged at Kakashi, but he couldn't put a finger on it. Not yet.



He sighed and stretched in his seat. It would come to him later, he was sure. He just needed to be patient.



"Tired?" said Sasuke.



Kakashi shrugged.



"It's worth it," he said.



Sasuke was worth it. And Sasuke was truly his student because he understood what Kakashi had not said. The look Sasuke gave him was warm, and not because the power of the Amaterasu slept within him. Kakashi still hadn't come to terms—quite—with the tangled emotions Sasuke gave rise to, but Sasuke knew anyway, saw underneath the underneath, and was taking it in stride.



It seemed Sasuke felt something of the same for him, too, because Sasuke was giving him obvious and not so obvious signals of that same something that had struck him so hard that he, Kakashi, the great Copy Nin, had had a panic attack.



It was a something he had never expected to feel.



Kakashi wanted to sit there and make small talk with Sasuke, but when he tried to think of an innocuous topic, words failed him. Sasuke lowered his gaze and was, in fact, the first to get up. He took the dirty dishes away, leaving Kakashi alone with his thoughts.



In the end, Kakashi said nothing.



He said nothing while Sasuke cleaned up from lunch. He said nothing when Sasuke asked with his eyes that the two of them should sit a while in front of the stove, keeping warm, now that the morning's exertions had worn off.



And Kakashi said nothing when Sasuke moved his chair closer to Kakashi's close enough that if Sasuke had chosen, he could have reached out and touched him. Kakashi felt a certain tension in the air, and he knew, this time, exactly what it was.



He said—and did—nothing, and Sasuke seemed content to do the same. For now.

 

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I don't know when I'll do the next chapter, but, at least for the rest of February, I'm writing something every day. It may be Entropy, or it may not. I've got other projects that are speaking to me more loudly than this one, but I'm putting this one on the back burner again. I've gotten used to writing much longer chapters, in the meantime, so who knows? Maybe that will spill over into this story. (It sucks, calling three pages of writing a chapter, but Entropy has been unusual for me, that way.)

 

Thank you all for your patience!