" kakashi , you are not listening to me!" she's always had a short temper ; knows it in the flare of her hair and the run of her pulse against her chest and the way the skin of her hands turns red and splotchy white as her fingers curl into a fist. her voice raises to a roar, a loud ringing in her ears. anger is easy to stomach in the way vulnerability is not, a veil over that hurt in her heart, a pain she must not feel. but this child brings that weakness from her easily, settled into an silence, waiting expectantly for her answer. and what can she say ? nothing that will shake him, even if kushina pleads until she's blue in the face.
she might have shaped his name in some similar intensity before, but always for the easy things. spats between teammates, harsh words to friends. problems with a simpler solution than the fact that kakashi, still a child, does not fret about the blood stained into his gloves. something she could solve, even caged in the village like this. there is an irony in the strength of the beast sealed within her, the demon keeping her powerless. the embodiment of carnage and rage and all things awful, feeding off this delicious rage in her.
not turned to kakashi, never. but where can she point its blade ? a village torn apart by war, ruins an augury of what konoha would become if not protected by this child ? her own husband, his mentor, his mentor, impassive visage carved into the mountains to watch her brought to near tears ? a little dead boy and a little dead girl, bodies they couldn't even bring home ? she finds herself, finally, in the uncomfortable rise and fall of her chest. oh, she knows with certainty now: she could never be a mother.
" i am not, " she begins, voice muted with resignation, searching for strength in a short breath. it doesn't help much. " asking you to apologize for doing your duty to the village. " her hands find kakashi's shoulders. " i am asking you to take proper care of yourself, okay ? take more time off. rest, recuperate ... please. i'm sorry for raising my voice, but i feel like i'm losing you, a little. " i can't let you go too. it's selfish, she knows. he's lost so much.
Kakashi's fists ball up tightly at his sides, and he otherwise wills himself to stillness. He feels like he's going to be sick, Obito's stupid eye already starting to water beneath his hitai-ate, like Kushina has reached inside of him and scraped out all of his rotten parts and put them back wrong.
He's afraid. What purpose does he serve, if not to serve the village? If Kushina asks Minato to-- to take him off the active duty roster, Minato probably will. Minato might care enough about him to try to preserve him, to keep him from burning out, and Kakashi will have failed at the only thing he's ever been good at. He'll have nothing. He'll have survived for nothing, just like his father--
Kakashi is angry, too. Hot with it, like there's a coal in his mouth, like swallowing it will scald him all the way down to his toes. He's angry that he's afraid, and that Kushina is afraid for him, because she shouldn't be afraid for him at all. He's a weapon for the village, just like he was meant to be. Something ugly, something useful. He's angry that when Kushina asks him to stay, some weak part of him wants to. He wants to sleep on the floor in their kitchen tonight, curled up with Bull at his back until she picks him up and he pretends to sleep all the way to the couch. He doesn't want to be alone, to see Obito's face, crushed and blind, or Rin's face, terrified and bloodied and gentle even in death, or his father's face, tacky from where he'd fallen into a pool of his own blood, all of their blood soaking Kakashi's shaking hands, too small, too weak to make a difference. He's angry at himself, for shaking.
He tries to tear those feelings out at the root, because they aren't useful. He grips them carefully in his mind and tries to fold them away, but they're too big. They take too much with them. All that's left is a hollow, tired sadness. Kakashi wants to stand just-close-enough for her to reach out and fuss with his hair, pinch his cheeks, sling an arm around his neck. He wants to hide in the curtain of her hair like a fucking child, because it always feels like her fierceness alone can keep the horrors of the world away. For a while, at least.
"I-- I can't," Kakashi finally manages to unstick his jaw, forces his hands to relax at his sides, and he turns his face from her to hide the fact that his mask under Obito's eye is soaked with tears. "I... messed up, Kushina. I have to prove I'm... I'm not broken, I can still protect--" To his horror, his voice catches. He can't blame puberty, because he still sounds soft and childish, even at twelve. Even with all the blood on his hands. "I can still protect the village. I have to. I'm fine."
Tools that are no longer useful are discarded, after all. Kushina wouldn't do that to him, but to be a burden is to be even worse than useless. He won't drag her down with him, not like... not like his father did.
