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The early morning sunrise cast over the treetops of Konoha, painting the foliage in brilliant hues of orange and red. As Ayame walked towards the village’s front gate, she felt optimistic about her journey with Kakashi and the likelihood of healing these shinobi. No one should have to go through such a painful and debilitating illness as she had. It was all up to her to find those scrolls and perform that jutsu. She was sure it would be executed smoothly. Hopefully.
On her back, she carried her rucksack, stuffed with tubes of all the medicinal herbs she may need, along with a handful of tools to craft medicine if required. These items, of course, were brought as a precautionary measure. She had no reason to believe that she would use any of them. Nevertheless, she brought them just in case.
Maybe she was too optimistic.
Her strappy sandals shuffled down the dirt street as she thought about the final time she had left Rōtasuagekure. She had no family left there or anywhere, for that matter. Nothing had prepared her for the devastation that originated within that village or the unsuspecting role her brother had played in it. How naive she had been.
She thought of her brother for a moment, the innocent little boy who she always perceived to be a child in her mind. He had grown up so quickly that she had hardly noticed his changing behavior until it was too late. His new ideologies had been molded by someone else. She blamed herself when she laid in bed at night, wondering if her life would have had a different outcome had she intervened earlier.
As she rounded the last corner before the main gate, she spotted Mrs. Genchi, a widowed old woman who still owned and ran the only tailor shop in the village. Ayame nodded her head in greeting as she passed by, watching as she swept the storefronts path with her withered broom.
“Good morning, Genchi-sama,” Ayame hitched her rucksack further up her back.
“Good morning, Ayame-chan,” The old woman continued to sweep, not looking up. Ayame wondered if the tailor shop owner questioned why she headed towards the gate with a backpack rather than towards the flower shop. She bit the inside of her cheek.
At the gate, the orange glow of the sunrise was at its brightest. It was almost blinding as it came over the horizon. The large wooden doors cast two dark shadows heading out of the Leaf. Against the brick column leaned the man everyone called Kakashi, his backpack at his feet and a book in one hand. Ayame assessed him as she drew closer, observing his profile that was concealed behind a mask. She absently wondered again why he covered his face.
“Morning,” he greeted as she approached. She wondered if he had seen her coming, only for it to dawn on her moments later that he is taught to listen for footsteps.
“Good morning,” Ayame nodded solemnly, unsure of how he treated the seriousness of the mission. He closed his book in one hand and turned to face her.
“It seems there are more shinobi that have returned ill this morning,” Kakashi informed her grievously. His voice was quiet, not wanting anyone around to hear. She leaned closer. “So this mission is growing more urgent by the day. We still have time, but the situation is becoming more serious. This totals 14 shinobi that are hospitalized right now.”
“Understood,” Ayame stood up straight, ready.
“Lady Hokage has her assistant, Shizune working with the Medic Corps to formulate a backup drug in case our mission falls through,” He explained, his thumb stroking the spine of his book absently.
“Right. We should get going then,” she nodded, turning to the gate. “Anything else?”
“Yes, actually,” he reached into his backpack, revealing a pair of shin-high boots. She looked down and noticed he, too, was wearing the same kind.
“The tactical propper dispatched these to us. Hopefully, they will keep us protected from any underground threats.”
Kakashi handed the boots to Ayame, who assessed them skeptically. Carefully, she took off her old sandals and replaced her feet with the boots.
“I mean, the rest of our body is exposed, though.”
“I know. I already discussed it with them. But on such short notice, we just have to remain diligent in monitoring our surroundings. I know you do not have shinobi training, so don’t worry about it. Just remain cognizant.”
Ayame nodded, wiggling her feet in the boots. She could only imagine the sores that were to come after walking in these all day.
“Alright then. Ready?” He asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Yes,” Ayame responded, smiling slightly with excitement.
“Lead the way,” he said to her, his single eye squinting in a smile. She looked over at him, stunned that he was trusting her to guide them. But really, why wouldn’t he? She smiled back, hitching her backpack up again as she began to walk in the direction of her old village.
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The two moved quickly, or at least as quickly as Ayame’s feet allowed them to. She was not a shinobi by Konoha’s standards, but she did happen to be in good shape. Kakashi, of course, could move much faster than she ever could. Regardless of his pace, he didn’t let her fall behind.
The journey from Rōtasuagekure to Konoha had taken Ayame three days on foot by herself. Their pace today was much quicker, but she still anticipated they would need to stop at some point. Their conversations were light, mostly commentary on the scenery and the journey at hand. Often, he would pull out his book and read as they traveled. Ayame led the way, directing them to the best of her ability to her old village through thick foliage and dry dirt paths.
He asked her once if she wanted to stop to rest for a bit, but she declined, reminding him of their tight schedule. He had shrugged in response, allowing her to continue despite her evergrowing slumped shoulders.
“I think we should stop here for the night,” Kakashi finally remarked hours later, assessing an opened space through what little light the day had left. Above them, an opening was naturally formed around a canopy of trees, displaying twilight’s constellation of stars.
It was only when she stopped did she realize how exhausted her body was. She had been walking for 13 hours straight, eating little pellet-looking food Kakashi had offered her as they traveled. If it weren’t for her sheer determination to save the men and women of Konoha, she would have surely collapsed hours ago.
She sat down on a rock nearby, feeling her feet scream in gratitude. Underneath her boots, she was sure her feet were littered with blisters. The darkness brought cooler temperatures. Ayame wasn’t sure if it was her exhaustion or the cold that brought a slight chill to her spine.
“You look exhausted,” he pointed out casually, collecting a few twigs nearby for a fire.
“I’m fine,” she waved a dismissive hand, taking her backpack off. Her eyelids begged for sleep, and every inch of her body told her it was time to rest. She watched him perch the twigs up in a tent, preparing for a small fire. He put his hand down near the bottom of the pit, and a moment later, a spark of flame came up.
“Should we have a fire right now?” Ayame asked, looking around. “Won’t it draw attention?”
“Yes,” Kakashi agreed, standing up. “But I have no reason to believe we’re in danger here. It’s probably going to be cold tonight. Plus, I’ll be awake. Someone has to keep watch.”
“You’re not going to sleep?” she asked him, unrolling and setting her blanket down for the evening near a small boulder. He sat on a rock close by, stoking the fire with a long stick.
“I’m fine,” he responded assuredly, shrugging off his jonin jacket and carefully gathering it up to place on the ground next to him. Ayame stretched her legs out on her blanket and yawned as she rolled her shoulders. She looked over at him, feeling guilty for wanting to sleep while he kept guard.
“Shouldn’t you rest, though? I’m sure you’re just as tired as I am,” Ayame asked. She watched as he pulled off his Konoha headband, his silver hair falling flatly over his forehead.
She couldn’t quite place it, but there was something unusually stunning about his presence. The way his disheveled hair rested over his brow after a long day. The look of his body without his bulky green jacket, his shoulders hunched but broader than she initially perceived. She watched as he shifted one leg forward, his limb looking longer and more muscular at this distance. Ayame pushed her hair behind her ear, her eyes peering over his tightly wrapped ankles. She couldn’t understand why she studied him so closely, but she felt warmth spread like wildfire throughout her body when she did. The flickering light of the fire and the late hour of the day blended together in her mind to create an exhilarating new feeling.
“I’ll be alright,” he said, looking up at her from across the fire. The flickering light of the flames danced across his shadowy face. He gave her a small, reassuring smile. She noticed his other eye, the long scar that ran across his lid and cheek, cutting right through his thin gray eyebrow and disappearing under his mask. When he smiled, his eyes creased at the corners. He looked like a different person without his headband and jacket.
“I’m sure I’ll doze off for a little bit at some point,” he assured her, looking up at the sky above. The light flickered off his Adam’s apple.
“Thank you for your patience today,” she said, leaning back on her elbows, “I’m sure it was painful for you to walk so slowly. But we should get there early tomorrow.”
“It was a nice change of pace,” Kakashi slid down his bottom down into the dirt, using the rock he had just used to rest his back. Bending his knee, he flickered his eye back over to her.
“I was thinking,” she heard him say, “You said this Tsukamu root had lasting effects on your chakra reserves. Have you trained to attempt to gain some of that lost chakra back?”
Ayame looked over at him, surprised. “I - I have not, really. Or rather, I’m not really sure how. I mean, I know how to exercise and train. But my chakra was always just something that was there and then one day, it wasn’t. I had no guidance on how to get it back.”
“What happened when you were low on chakra in your old village?”
“We would be sent to do other work, and someone else would come in to take our place of growing the flowers. My cousins and I were cycled through. One day it would be me growing, and the next day it was someone else.”
Kakashi nodded, looking at the fire, and a rueful leer appeared beneath his mask, “Sounds like they just used you.”
“Yeah,” Ayame agreed dismally.
“I’m sorry about your clan, by the way,” Kakashi looked over at her somberly. “What you said yesterday, it must have been difficult.”
Ayame frowned, looking down at her lap and picking at fingertips. “I just wish I could have saved them.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t have saved them all and yourself.”
Kakashi looked over at her, observing her as she nervously fiddled with her fingers. In the orange light of the fire, he could see a layer of coiled frizz haloed around her braid. He found this comforting, although he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because of how hard she had worked to get here today, with no formal training as a shinobi to go long distances in short periods. Yet her determination had surprised him.
An owl hooted in the distance, reminding him of the one he heard last night in Tsunade’s office.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” he said finally, his eyes locked on her.
“But I could have prevented it if I had paid more attention to what my brother was up to. Why he wasn’t around when he should have been. I just figured he had other duties, and we covered for him. I didn’t expect him to be …”
Kakashi nodded his head, understanding. “Regardless, you can’t change what happened. You just have to deal with the reality and move on.”
Ayame looked up at the fire, the glowing flames licking at the sticks he had placed in a pile. Frowning, she thought of her brother, her own blood, the reason she had no family left. Did she miss them? Of course. But did she yearn for the never-ending labor and mistreatment? No. Certainly not.
“But I don’t think your charka situation is a lost cause,” Kakashi said, shifting his tone. She watched him kick a small rock with his sandal. “You said you haven’t trained, but have you tried other methods?”
Ayame looked over at him, "I think my case is a bit different, wouldn’t you say?“
"But have you tried?” Kakashi countered. His tone was tenacious but lighthearted in nature. She considered just ignoring him, not wanting to rehash her inability to conduct chakra. But when she looked over at him, he raised his eyebrows in anticipation of her response.
“I haven’t,” she tried to push back a smile that crept up on her quickly. “As I said, I would imagine my circumstance is different.”
“I’m assuming no one ever taught you what is actually going on inside your body,” Kakashi returned. This felt like banter between two friends, not between two people who had just met less than 24 hours ago and were shipped out together on a time-crunched mission. Or perhaps he was flirting with her. Ayame pursed her lips, not taking the bait.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Ayame yawned, stretching her arms. Didn’t want to seem too interested, she thought.
“I mean, I don’t have to tell you,” He quipped, reflecting back her disinterested tone. He stood up, stretching his arms as well. “I just thought maybe you’d want to know what’s really going on.”
Ayame’s ears perked up, and she looked up at him, his back turned to her as he gathered a few more branches in the brush behind them.
“What do you mean, what’s really going on? I would think I know more of what’s happening in my body than you do.”
“That may be true,” he said as he stood with a twig in his hand. “But you were never taught the basics of your chakra network. It’s not some central point in your body. It’s a system of vessels that channel through you. I saw you earlier when we were walking with my eye, and your chakra network isn’t as damaged as you believe it is.”
“I’m sorry?” Ayame felt her face flush as she quickly looked over at him. She was grateful for the darkness around them.
As she spoke, he turned to her, his left eye opened. Her brain couldn’t quite comprehend what she was looking at—the red glow of it, the spinning iris. His complete gaze assessed her, looking through her like a window.
“With my Sharingan, I can see some of your chakra network. When you were walking in front of me today, I used it to see if your network had been severed where you were previously injured. My assumption was correct, and it wasn’t, but it is severely damaged.”
“Severely damaged,” Ayame repeated, looking down at the fire.
“Yes,” he turned back around and shut his left eye as he gathered more sticks for the fire.
“If your network was severed, you wouldn’t be able to use any of your chakra,” he said, sitting back down. “But as you showed us last night, you can. You are able to maneuver some chakra through your body with some health repercussions. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be mended and used. It just may take extra energy to push your chakra through the channel.”
“And how do I do that?” Ayame asked skeptically.
Kakashi casually threw a few twigs into the fire. “Today, you used a good amount of energy to get here. More so, I would say, than you do on a regular basis. Although you may feel drained, your body should have generated chakra through your physical movements.”
“Is this what you were thinking about all day?” Ayame laughed. “I understand. But how do I push it through? It’s not like you can widen an injured vessel.”
“That will come from healing and spiritual energy,” Kakashi explained, “healing can be done back in Konoha. I’m sure you’ve never seen someone for this injury, right?”
“No,” Ayame replied. “I never thought to.”
“I doubt it can be healed completely at this point, but it’s worth a try.”
“And this spiritual energy?”
“Spiritual energy and physical energy is what chakra is made of. Physical energy manifests from training or exertion. Spiritual energy, however, comes from within,” the silver-haired shinobi explained, holding a twig between his hands. She watched as he twirled it around his fingers. “Think of it as mental stamina. You can increase it by experience or meditation. Have you ever meditated?”
Ayame shook her head, feeling inferior for never having learned any of this. There was a whole world out there she had never been exposed to. Even within the confines of her new home, she had never learned any of this.
“I don’t do it often, but it is a good method to use when you are just learning to hone your chakra or learning a different chakra nature,” Kakashi explained. “I can teach you - if you want. Or maybe you could try it in the morning before we leave. I think it would help.”
He looked over at her, waiting for a response. The pensive ambiance of the sparking fire and the evening’s cool breeze enveloped their little huddle. Looking over at him, Ayame gently smiled, nodding. His gaze was penetrating; the twinkling of his dark eye in the fire stirred something in her stomach.
“I will,” she said finally.
He smiled softly at her. His eyes locked with hers, and she could see the smile under his mask with the unsteady light of the burning fire. Despite the crisp air of the night, heat washed over her body like a wave against rocks. Time seemed to slow, even for a few seconds. At that moment, it was just the two of them in that forest: no illness, no mission, no timeline. Just his dark eye staring softly into hers. The wrinkle of his eyes when he smiled felt like an electrical shock to her body.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I appreciate your help.”
He watched her lips curl with each word. Something twisted in his lower stomach, and he swallowed. He looked away and chuckling softly, immediately regretting severing their connection. He scolded himself for letting his nerves got the best of him. The feeling that had just washed over him was unlike anything he was familiar with. As a man who was rarely ever shaken, he felt jarred by the experience. He was a calm man, dedicated to his role as a shinobi of the Leaf. Something as potent as that feeling would only distract him, he reminded himself.
“No problem,” he responded, scratching the back of his neck uneasily. Ayame looked down, smiling softly to herself. This felt quite childlike, but nevertheless, she found herself savoring it.
“Get some sleep,” Kakashi said finally, pulling out a battered orange book from his back pocket. He was clearly flustered, she thought. “We have to leave before dawn, so we don’t have long. So get some rest. I’ll be right here.”
Ayame nodded and laid down on her blanket, her heart still pounding in her chest from such a small interaction.
“Thank you,” Ayame said again, turning to face away from him. She hesitated, chewing her bottom lip. “Goodnight, Kakashi.”
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A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry no screenshots this week, it seems my Sims is acting up. But I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I rewrote it about 4 times, as I wasn’t sure where I wanted it to go. But I’m very excited to keep going :) Thank you for reading! <3
