Dirty Little Secret

CHAPTER 6



Naruto, indeed, was not happy. As Tenzo and Kakashi stood stiffly in his office – the younger man upright and looking straight forward into space and Kakashi trying to emulate him while leaning heavily on a cane once again – Naruto paced slowly back and forth without saying a word.



Frankly, knowing the blond, Kakashi had expected an outburst, screaming, throwing things. So far, however, he had been deathly quiet, his breathing calm and even. His expression was completely frozen. The only thing that betrayed his fury was the dark red splotches of colour on his whiskered cheeks that grew darker by the minute.



After pacing for a few more minutes, he stopped, turned and faced his subordinates. When the Hokage spoke, his tone was emotionless and utterly cold.



“I am deeply disappointed in the both of you.” He said, but he was looking straight into Kakashi’s eyes. The older man resisted the desperate urge to look away – Naruto’s eyes had darkened to rusty red, the colour of congealed blood.



“I sent the two of you expecting that you’d do your jobs, that you’d do what you’re trained to do… and you return with the news that you have not only lost the medicines, but you lost two valuable operatives!” his voice had been raising steadily during his speech until it turned into a boom in the end. “Two operatives” he continued, just as loudly “who brought us invaluable income! It is difficult enough that we have so very few people capable of working” he stared at Kakashi again “But you lose them on such an idiotically easy mission!”



This time they shrank back from his rage but he pressed on anyway.



“I expected more from you! From the both of you!”



Suddenly his tone calmed again as Naruto looked at Kakashi.



“Perhaps I shouldn’t have.”



He turned to Tenzo.



“You. Get out of my sight.”



The jounin bowed stiffly and left the office, Kakashi and Naruto remaining alone together.



The blond circled around him twice like a shark around its prey and then came to stand before him. Kakashi finally looked down at his feet.



“You’re dismissed from active duty from this point on.” Naruto announced. “I shouldn’t have allowed it to begin with, but I decided to give you a chance. I see now that it was a mistake, both for your sake and Konoha’s.”

“Hokage-sama!” he tried to protest, but Naruto lifted his hand.



“This subject is closed, Kakashi. Go home, go to the hospital too, to check your leg out, just in case. But you are no longer an active operative agent, and that’s final. I cannot allow for Konoha to be seen as weak.”



Kakashi suddenly felt numb – he knew, theoretically, that he was supposed to be upset over the blond’s decision, but he just couldn’t summon the strength for it. Perhaps in time, when he had managed to come to terms with this change in his life – one too many perhaps.



“I understand, Hokage-sama.” He said weakly.



Naruto nodded.



“I will have someone contact you in a few days, when I decide what to do with you – you were my sensei once, as much as you disliked the obligation, and I won’t leave you jobless.”



Under his mask, Kakashi gaped at the last remark. What was that? Before he could voice his question and protest, Naruto dismissed him.



“Go now.”



He turned and left. If he had a tail like his ninken, it would have been tucked between his legs.



Kakashi spent the next few days laying in bed and staring at the wall, waiting for the throbbing in his knee to subside, but mostly thinking, analyzing, turning things in his head over and over, wondering when things had gone so terribly wrong and trying to figure out what to do with his future.



All his life, he had been a shinobi. Scratch that. All his life he had been a murderer – he had long stopped feeling shame or regret over it, the part of his mind that felt guilty for taking a life had long gone too numb from too much stimulae – after all, he had been but six years old when he first took a man’s life on the field. No, not a man – a child, barely six or seven years his senior, a silly Iwa genin who had been in the wrong place and the wrong time. Kakashi could still remember his shock and revulsion when the boy’s blood splattered all over his mask-covered face and clothes, smelling just like his father’s had smelled, only fresher. This stench had haunted him over the years, ever present, sticking to his hands and clothes and hair – it never went away, no matter what he did to remove it. In time, the jounin stopped noticing it, it became part of who he was, just like the Sharingan and the facial mask.



The Sharingan. For all this time, he had avoided trying to think about its loss, about losing the last part of Obito that he had clung to all his life. The eye - such an incredible asset in battle, and at the same time – a double-bladed weapon, leeching his chakra reserves at an appalling rate.



He had hoped that even without it, he could return to what he had been before Obito had died, as abilities, if not as personality – for he despised the kind of person he had been back then.His severely decreased mobility however had put a brake on those plans. Permanently, it appeared.



So. What now? What does a man who only knew how to kill, how to be a weapon, do when his function was no longer in use? His father had reached an obvious answer - a decommissioned weapon is destroyed, so as not to take up space and valuable resources for the newer, working models. And, just like a perfect little tool, he had followed through with his programming and had self-destructed, uncaring about the boy he left behind. Or, as sometimes people thought – he had taken his own life in a fit of purely human, unbearable suffering. Kakashi had never been sure which explanation he preferred better. Which one hurt less that is – whether his father had been incapable of caring or he simply hadn’t cared enough to stay with him.



Either way, killing himself was not an option – just like he had promised himself he’d change after Obito died – he had vowed that no matter the circumstances, he wouldn’t follow through in Sakumo’s footsteps – and in an effort to sever all links with the man he had hid his face behind a mask, willing people around him and himself to forget a face that he could not escape from because he carried it himself.



Which led Kakashi back to the original question – he was no longer an active nin – what was he to do? More importantly, what else was he capable of doing? The mental image of himself standing next to Ayame-chan in the Ichikaru was quite hilarious, not to mention absurd, unless he was stationed there to slip poison in the food of anyone who was deemed a foreign spy in Konoha and happened to eat at the ramen stand. Besides, his people skills were atrocious and he had little patience for spoiled fools – he wouldn’t make a good merchant. He was not learned in any sort of craft – other than the aforementioned killing people one.



His leg cramped up again and with a quiet hiss Kakashi tried to move in the most comfortable position possible, thinking that he should take Naruto’s advice and go to the hospital.

The hospital. The Academy.



Really, why not? He had more than enough knowledge to impart on the future generations – and Naruto was terribly understaffed. He needed both well-trained fresh blood along with people who could train them. If Umino Iruka could do it, then he could too. Possibly. There was always that intense fear of failure, of both connecting with people and their rejection. And the inability to suffer fools. However, the need to be useful, to FEEL useful was stronger than his apprehension.



Back when Sarutobi-sensei had asked him so many times to take on genin teams he had known that he had other options to serve his village and had found ways to escape from becoming a teacher – and look how his lack of experience at dealing with children had led to the spectacular failure of Team 7 – he had no one else to blame for that but himself. But he knew more now, knew better – Kakashi was pretty certain that this time around he could do it. There was really no other alternative but success – and then perhaps he would find some measure of peace over his failure with Sasuke, with Obito, over… so many others. It would be his chance at redemption



Naruto was going to ask for him, sooner or later – he had promised – and then Kakashi would offer it to him, as carefully as he dared. Surely the Hokage wouldn’t refuse his request – after all, he was one of the most learned and experienced shinobi in the village, teaching at the Academy should be an honour for the students.