New fic! This is for the @tenzoscabin Theme of the Month Event for April: Celebrating Traditions! :3
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Yamato | Tenzou, Hatake Kakashi & Yamato | Tenzou
Additional Tags: Romance, Fluff and Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Hatake Kakashi is Bad at Feelings, Canon Compliant, Getting Together, First Kiss, 5+1 Things, Developing Relationship, Anbu Hatake Kakashi, Anbu Yamato | Tenzou, Hokage Hatake Kakashi, Eventual Happy Ending
Word Count: 8,640
Summary:
June 24th.
There was nothing objectively special about that date. It wasn’t a holiday or a birthday (at least not Kakashi’s or Tenzō’s). It wasn’t the anniversary of any large battle, nor was it precisely the summer solstice.
But it was, unquestionably, the day that Kakashi had chosen to thank Tenzō, year after year.
(Or: Kakashi thanks Tenzō in increasingly flustering ways, plus one time that Tenzō thanks Kakashi.)
Had a brainchild moment hit me with the image of what a Modern AU Forest Ranger Tenzō would look like. Then with the most amazing contributions from @nki-stories and @rengonemad on the @tenzoscabin Discord server, this AU has came to life with a name and some delicous meaty bits to it!
Your Turn To Stay
What we have so far is:
Tenzō the Forest Ranger, he enjoys befriending the wildlife and protecting the forest, helping out visitors, saving the stranded as well as [but not limited to] informing adults and children about the different ecosystems, flora, and fauna.
Shapeshifters come into the mix one day when Tenzō’s out in the forest taking in the scenery on his lunch break. Turns out the wildlife he was befriending and enjoying are mostly shapeshifters.
It’s a happy accident because they all show Tenzō their appreciation for him protecting the forest and their habitat.
This is when Tenzō meets Kakashi the wolf shapeshifter, and leader of the Hatake pack. [The Hatake pack is made up of various shapeshifters, not just wolves.]
Naruto is a fox cub shapeshifter who was adopted by the Hatake pack. [Feel free to send in additional suggestions for other Naruto characters as shapeshifters and members of the Hatake pack!]
Kiba is also a wolf, but he’s of the Inuzuka pack. [Which is mostly made up of his family of shapeshifters, but they also take in a few strays as well.]
Next we have the Akatsuki Hunters. Their goal is to hunt down and steal the souls of the shapeshifters. It’s believed that when you drink the soul of a shapeshifter it gives you unbridled strength/powers, preserves your youth, and you gain an amazing healing factor.
Kakuzu’s only goal is to collect their pelts because money. 🤣
By now it’s been two years and Tenzō has spent so much time with his new shapeshifting friends that he’s fallen in love with the leader of the Hatake pack, Kakashi.
One day, somewhere not too far away from the Hatake pack’s land [which is also part of the forest in which Tenzō patrols], the Akatsuki Hunters manage to get their hands on a Inuzuka shapeshifter who was trying to save a young boy [Sai] from drowning. They managed to pull him from the river, but they ultimately they were knocked out and captured when they were caught off guard. The unconscious boy is found later that evening by another Inuzuka pack member who went out searching for their brother and brought the boy back to the den to be cared for. Unfortunately, Sai is sick with hypothermia and they’re not sure he’ll last the night so they turn him into a shapeshifter to save his life.
The next day, before Tenzō leaves the station for his patrol, he is informed that poachers [the Akatsuki Hunters] have been spotted in the area. Tenzō tries to get to Kakashi and his pack as fast as he can to warn them, but he runs into trouble. Right when Tenzō is far enough into the woods, he is ambushed by Kakuzu and Jūzō. They don’t want any witnesses to their business, and the only reason Sai was left alive was because Hidan didn’t realize what the Inuzuka shapeshifter was doing. He simply thought they were getting a drink of water from the river.
Tenzō is stabbed in the back and stomach then left for dead [or so he thinks], but Kakazu and Jūzō know that shapeshifters are cautious when it comes to the scent of blood and that they’ll investigate it.
Kakashi gets a whiff of coppery scent first, then the familiar scent of Tenzō and he tells his pack to run and hide while he goes off to investigate. Of course Kakashi is panicking because he’s in love with Tenzō too [but they just haven’t admitted it to each other yet]. When Kakashi gets there, Tenzō is already unconscious and he’s ambushed by Kakuzu and Jūzō.
Shapeshifter Kakashi is a forced to be reckoned with and the pair sent out to this area can’t keep up with his attacks. It isn’t until Kakuzu realizes that Kakashi is protecting the Forest Ranger, he see an opportunity to save their own skins as well as some prized pelts. Clearly, the shapeshifter has softspot for this person to which he can use to their advantage. He tells Jūzō to stop fighting, but he doesn’t listen and Kakuzu can’t stand it. He tells him two more times, but by the third time he strikes Jūzō down, killing him. That’s when Kakashi stops, shocked that the Akatsuki Hunter would turn on their own partner and now that Kakuzu has Kakashi’s attention he quickly grabs Tenzō and tells Kakashi that if he wants the Ranger to live, he best come quietly without fighting him. Kakashi doesn’t see any other recourse so he begrudgingly agrees.
Once they make it back to the Akatsuki Hunter’s hideout, Tenzō and Kakashi are placed in a cell together. Unfortunately, Tenzō isn’t going to wake up because he’s lost too much blood and the only thing Kakashi can think to do is turn him into a shapeshifter [I have am still mulling over if shapeshifters become the same animal as the person that turned them, or if they shapeshift into the animal they’re more akin to].
Tenzō’s life is saved and he wakes back up finally, but when he does, he’s no longer human [Either he turns into a wolf, bear, or a big cat? I welcome thoughts, suggestions, and speculation on this! Halp!]. He can’t turn back into a human yet, not until he’s healed up some, and even then he doesn’t know how.
Kakuzu comes in with Kisame and Itachi to show them his catch and he’s satisfied that his impromptu plan paid off. Now they have two shapeshifters for the price of one, which means another pelt for him and another soul for the Akatsuki Hunters [I totally imagine the Akatsuki Hunters being an occult now. Lmfao! 🤣]
That’s all we’ve got for now! If you wish to ask any questions, want to add to this, make suggestions, or comments, please feel free to send them in! 💜🌱🙆♂️
I am super curious about your WIP "Sai, Sparklepuppy, and Sketches" xD
This one came about from discussion in my writing server! (As . . . many of my plans do or at least are affected by. >.>) I love my Dog-sensei & Sparklepuppy theme, as is no surprise I am sure, and it has been something of a plan in discussion for a while to add in Inkpuppy Sai - I have plans for this directly and have written a little with him inexplicably roped in with Kakashi-sensei and Sakura. Inkpuppy trying so very hard to learn how to be a Good Puppy and watching Sakura and Kakashi (and maybe winding up rather more animalistic than one might expect for someone with no blood link like the Hatake, Inuzuka, Yashagoro, etc.) and bonding with them.
This thread, however, worked off the idea that Sai sketches people around him with mysterious perceptiveness, among other things . . . and also that he was not entirely aware he was being adopted into a pack until long after it had happened. (Of course; poor silly Inkpuppy.)
A little snippet!
“Is that . . . us?” Sakura asked, and Kakashi glanced over to where she was stretching beneath the wide branches of an oak, Sai beside her with his tools. “Me and Kakashi-sensei?”
“Yes. Is it . . . bad?” Sai asked, looking at his paper.
“No, of course not!” Sakura assured him, smiling brightly.
Kakashi’s perspective/observation of said drawing:
The larger figure was a large wolf lying in a loose curl near the trunk of a tree represented more by sketchy lines than directly drawn, a book with a restricted symbol lying open over his muzzle. Kakashi’s lips twitched. Near himself was a much smaller canine - a puppy - the lines of her body softer, crouched over a rather thick book lying open between her paws. There was a stack of more of the same just visible past her shoulders.
There may be more drawings featured in this, including getting Sai included. Honestly this WIP is a handful of very tiny scenebits and some rough notes mostly in my head, thus far.
Art as representation of both people (inside and out) and feelings/bonds!
(Check out my WIP list and ask me about anything interesting!)
This is a gift for Dami over at the KakaGai Hell Discord! I hope you enjoy! >.<
Rating: General
Pairing: Hatake Kakashi & Maito Gai (can be read platonic or as the prelude to romance)
Warnings: None, Read More is just for length
Word Count: 2k
5 Times Gai made Kakashi consider Scars, and 1 Time Kakashi Understood
1.
The first time Kakashi heard hushed respect in his father’s voice, they were in the presence of Sarutobi Hiruzen. That made sense, Kakashi thought: he was a man famed as the Sandaime, the Professor, the strongest shinobi in Konoha, and the student of both the First and Second Hokages. If there was anyone that the legendary White Fang would respect, it would be Sarutobi Hiruzen.
The second time Kakashi heard hushed respect in his father’s voice, it was quite different. He was about to start at the Academy and a bruised and scarred kid in a green bodysuit was thanking Kakashi for an insult.
“At this rate, this kid could become even stronger than you.” Sakumo said quietly, his palm a heavy weight on Kakashi’s head.
Kakashi didn’t understand. The kid was weak. Not only had he been rejected from the Academy even though he looked a little older than Kakashi, but he was covered in dirt and abrasions. That meant he was weak enough to get hurt, and stupid enough not to hide it.
Kakashi asked for the kid’s name anyway. If his father respected these people, then Kakashi could do that much.
It didn’t make sense, but Kakashi trusted his father.
He trusted his father when he suggested Kakashi make Gai his rival. He trusted his father when he said that Sarutobi Hiruzen was a great man. He trusted his father when he said that Kakashi shouldn’t worry about him—that Sakumo was fine, even if it looked like he hadn’t left his bed since Kakashi left for his mission five days earlier. Even if the dishes were molding and Kakashi heard whispers about the White Fang, about his fall from grace—
Kakashi trusted his father.
He did, until there was no more father to trust.
Maito Dai and Maito Gai were the only people who attended Hatake Sakumo’s funeral.
They cried more than Kakashi did.
Two weeks later, Kakashi moved out of Hatake Estate and into a chūnin barrack. It was a cramped, one-room affair, but that meant it was easier to clean.
Most importantly, it didn’t have blood-stained tatami.
It didn’t have any scars.
2.
The first time Kakashi got a scar that couldn’t be hidden by clothes, he got a sharingan and ninety-eight pounds of guilt to go with it.
They were all signs of his weakness. Signs of his failures.
But that didn’t mean he was willing to get rid of them.
The Uchiha petitioned for the removal of Kakashi’s sharingan. There was no proof it had been given willingly, Fugaku said. (Disregarding the fact that not only was Rin a witness, but that the Yamanakas could have proven it from both of their memories if necessary.) It was sacrilege for a kekkei genkai to be wielded by someone outside of the clan. (The entire notion of shinobi having honor was questionable, in Kakashi’s humble opinion.) Keeping a kekkei genkai without a matching bloodline would kill the host by chakra drain—
—that part actually had some validity. Kakashi nearly died of chakra drains three times in that first year, before he finally figured out exactly how far he could push himself, how to recognize the warning signs when the sharingan began to consume more than Kakashi had to give. Effectively losing an eye meant an imbalance in depth perception and narrowed field of vision, both of which were easily deadly for a shinobi. Reading gave him a skull-splitting headache for the first two months, and his handwriting suddenly went from precise to nearly illegible and always slanted at an angle no matter how he turned his head.
Rin looked at him differently, too. Even with one eye, Kakashi could tell. Her smiles were brittle. They shattered the moment she looked away.
She often looked away.
The scar was a sign of his weakness. The sharingan, a mark of his greatest mistake.
It was a mark he deserved to bear.
3.
Gai wouldn’t leave Kakashi alone.
Part of that was probably Kakashi’s fault; Maito Dai didn’t leave a body behind, but Gai held a private funeral for him anyway. Kakashi was the only one to attend.
Over the next few years, Gai kept accumulating scars—some of them drawn by Kakashi’s own hand. They never tried to seriously injure each other—if weapons were involved, they fought until one part was disarmed or forced to concede. If taijutsu was the arena, then a successful pin for five seconds constituted a win. Kakashi never used fatal ninjutsu techniques.
But accidents happened. Sometimes Gai didn’t dodge as quickly as Kakashi thought he would. Not hurting Gai in those instances became part of Kakashi’s practice, although not one he ever told his “Eternal Rival”. Gai’s ego wasn’t as untarnishable as he claimed it to be.
Gai’s scars steadily grew in number, overtaking his body with rough lines and calloused flesh. Kakashi’s own scars were fewer in number, but they, too, accumulated as the years passed.
Their scars were different. Gai’s were a show of his dedication, the effort he put into perfecting something that no one thought possible of him.
Kakashi’s laced his skin with memories that couldn’t be shut out.
4.
When they were seventeen, Gai got rejected. He had brought her dozens of bouquets, composed entire sonnets, exclaimed about her to Kakashi every rare chance he got. Apparently, she said he was too much for her. Kakashi could see her point, but Gai really didn’t deserve the daffodils thrown back in his face.
Gai only mourned for one day before he got up again, the same as at the end of any fight, and poured his sweat and tears into taijutsu. He used that motivation to master the fifth gate.
Two months later, he was interested in another girl. He courted her with exactly the same amount of gusto as he had the first time around. This girl accepted. When she broke up with him politely two months later, Gai was still certain that true love existed, and absolutely willing to have his heart broken a million times over in order to find it.
Kakashi pretended to read while listening to his rants. He pretended to read while Gai sobbed in passion or mourning. He pretended to read while watching how the accumulating scars on tanned skin never reached Gai’s humongous, tender heart.
Kakashi pretended that he didn’t think Gai was just as cool as he was ridiculous.
5.
The first time Kakashi saw Gai truly affected by a scar, it wasn’t his own.
Rock Lee was probably the first person in the world (other than Hatakes) who truly respected Gai. Unfortunately, while Lee and Gai’s ostentatious personalities, bullheaded stubbornness, large hearts, and bushy eyebrows all gave them obvious similarities, there were important points in which the two differed.
Those points led to Lee’s self-destruction.
While Lee had grown up in peacetime, with romantic dreams of shinobi and what it meant to be one, Gai had been faced with the stark reality of it from the earliest time he could remember.
Gai understood consequences, and he understood how to judge an acceptable loss—at least, most of the time. Gai had known death firsthand before even leaving the Academy, and had seen his own father make the ultimate sacrifice of the eighth gate. He understood risks, and he had the ability to weigh them, whether most people realized that or not.
Yet, Gai gave such tremendous power as the gates to a child who was full of more idealism than reason, more impulse than temperance. He gave that power to a boy who certainly would one day become a fine shinobi, but who had never seen death or destruction or the scars shinobi so often didn’t survive. Gai gave that power to a child who had never had anything more precious on the line than his own pride—and Lee suffered a powerful price for it.
Kakashi couldn’t be beside Gai for those early days after Lee’s injury, because Gai wasn’t the only one who had make a mistake. Instead, Kakashi spent weeks sleeping for mere minutes at a time on a sheer rock face, training himself and his own childish student—one who had seen far more than many full-grown shinobi ever did—in the vain hope that they would both survive whatever Orochimaru would bring them next.
He thought that Sasuke’s past would teach him how to use his power well. Naively, Kakashi thought he had chosen better than Gai, that Sasuke wouldn’t suffer the same consequences.
He was wrong.
Kakashi and Gai had both failed their students—but Gai’s was an error of judgement, one in which he had placed his own history and capabilities onto a kid that wasn’t quite ready.
It took less than two months for Kakashi to realize his own error had been far worse. His own error had been one of the heart: specifically, of neglecting Sasuke’s.
By then, it was too late.
The most painful scars, Kakashi knew by that point, were the ones he could only see, and do nothing to heal.
+1
Four years later, scars mottled the Earth itself. Konoha carried more than her share of them. Even months after Pein’s attack, rubble stood in half the districts and gouges were still being filled in with dirt and cement. Tenzō had long since erected temporary and permanent structures for the village’s basic needs, but post-war, there were too many necessities and not enough resources to allocate to them. One of the only projects completed during the first few months of the Rokudaime’s tenure was an additional ward to the hospital, designated for rehabilitating physically debilitated shinobi.
No one had come out of the Fourth Shinobi War without a scar. Some of them were simply more noticeable than others.
“Doesn’t the Hokage—” Gai wheezed as he struggled to pull himself into an upright position in the hospital bed. Kakashi remained by the window, listening to the sound of hammers banging in the distance. He knew better than to offer help for something Gai could do himself—no matter how much time, and pain, it could cost him. “Have better things to waste his time on than—visiting an old rival?”
“I’m hiding,” Kakashi shrugged. He glanced over his shoulder to see Gai’s expression. “Maa, no need to look so disapproving. It’s only until I make a decision.” He held a palm up in pacification. “I promise I’m not shirking my duties.”
“Ah.” Gai nodded wisely, but his voice was breathy, hoarse despite the water bottle he had already half-drained. “I have—every faith you’ll make the best choice!”
With entirely burnt chakra pathways, Kakashi could only imagine the pain and fatigue Gai was going through—at least a dozen-fold what Kakashi himself had ever experienced with the sharingan. It was a miracle he was talking at all.
Well—not a miracle. Gai’s strength wasn’t the gift of any God.
It was something he had formed himself.
“You still have faith, Gai?” Kakashi murmured. “Even after all this?”
Gai’s bushy brows descended towards the center, the corners of his lips tugging down as well to form a frown. He was always sharper than people knew.
Tanned and scarred fingers clenched around his bottle of water. Plastic crinkled beneath the grip that had lost decades of strength in a single, life-changing moment.
With Gai, Kakashi knew: it was strength that could be gained again.
“In you, Kakashi, I always have faith.”
Kakashi turned back to face the window. His fingernails dug into the meat of his palm, hidden within his pocket. The other hand rose. He brushed fingerprints against the scar that bisected where the sharingan had once sat—a constant reminder still of Kakashi’s biggest failures.
But that scar no longer stole Kakashi’s sight.
That scar no longer stole Kakashi’s chakra.
That scar no longer blinded Kakashi to the changes he could make in the world, and in those around him.
It had taken over twenty-five years for Kakashi to understand why Gai could be who he was—why he could accumulate scars that were only surface-deep, why he could take even worse ones in stride and use them to drive himself forward:
Gai didn’t define himself by his scars.
Perhaps it was time that Kakashi learned how to do that, too.
This is a drabble for this absolutely beautiful piece of art by @enchantedpendant, for an event hosted by the @the-kakashi-lounge-blog. I am just so honored to be able to write for this. It’s truly a stunning piece, and the emotion in Sai’s face is so lovely, I couldn’t resist trying to capture a little bit of it in words. <3
Rating: General
Pairing: Sai & Kakashi & Friends (platonic)
Warnings: None, the Keep Reading is just for length.
Word Count: 1.5k
Learning Loyalty
“Who are you loyal to?”
The recalled words were louder than the sounds of the village—a rarity for Sai. Typically, he was hypervigilant. Bits of conversations coalesced in his hearing as he walked, scraps of information that carried no meaning on their own because he lacked the framework in which they should be placed. Names came without attached faces, and jokes were passed around like encrypted codes to which Sai didn’t hold the key.
Still, Sai listened, and remembered all he could.
“You didn’t betray Danzō for his ethical follies, and you didn’t betray him to save Konoha.”
Sai could hear the sizzling of food in a hot skillet, smell the umami and saccharine scents from street vendors. He didn’t stop to buy any, although he now could; Ryō burned in his pouch, available to be used at his own, personal discretion.
He wasn’t hungry.
The phantom remnant of the seal on his tongue burned too much for him to eat.
“If you fought only for Naruto…”
A bright guffaw sounded from somewhere to Sai’s right. He glanced over, raising a pale hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the noon sun. Between short curtains fluttering in the early spring breeze, Sai could see yellow hair and a brown ponytail. The man called Iruka was frowning, but Sai couldn’t tell if his anger was genuine or falsified. Naruto seemed unbothered by it, regardless, and proceeded to shovel ramen into his mouth at a pace even their Rokudaime might have had difficulty matching.
Sai kept walking.
Some time passed, but Sai’s feet carried him on, uncertain though he was of his destination.
That was something he had tried not to think much about, until Kakashi’s words brought the difficult decisions that came with autonomy to an uncomfortable highlight.
“Then who would you be loyal to if Naruto were no longer here?”
The hospital had been expanded since the end of the War, with an entire wing dedicated to physical rehabilitation of wounded shinobi. Sai could see messy pink hair through a recently-constructed window. Sakura pointed up at something on a wall Sai couldn’t quite see. Captain Yamato followed her direction and nodded thoughtfully, responding too lowly for Sai to hear.
Their Captain had taken to the limelight better than Sai had. After his contributions to the reconstruction efforts, villagers called his name when he passed, waved or brought him fruit baskets when he passed through the market. Sai was no expert, but he could see the blush that stained Yamato’s cheeks in those times, and he thought it was due to pleasure rather than solely embarrassment.
Yamato had found his place in the village.
Sai began walking again before his former teammates could see him.
“Will your loyalty then go to me?”
At some point, Sai’s feet carried him to the base of Hokage rock. Carved faces stared across the treetops and the roofs of buildings, their six united stares lighting on every member of the village—every shinobi, every child, every civilian shopkeeper or carpenter.
Sai hesitated for only a moment. Then, he set a sandal on the cliff face, and began to ascend.
In minutes, he found himself perched in the rocky bed of Kakashi’s hair. The carving was new enough that no weeds or lichen had yet claimed their spots upon the stone, but dust and dirt coasted the black of his pants in mere moments.
“To Konoha?”
Sai looked out over Konoha, with the sun at his back, and tried to see the village with the eyes that the Hokages did.
He tried to see the Will of Fire, and the children in the Academy halls that Sai himself had never walked.
He tried to see the workers in the Hokage Tower, filing paperwork on missions that were reviewed by honest eyes—missions that didn’t always end in bloodshed or secrets that could burn a nation to the ground.
He tried to see the people who Naruto called friends, who had tried to welcome Sai with open arms: Hinata, Kiba, Shikamaru, and that blonde woman Sai couldn’t remember the name of, but who seemed to like it when he called her pretty.
Sai knew the Hokages could see all of those things, but his stomach just felt empty. Cool wind ghosted over his skin, chilled his fingertips and bare cheeks.
“Or are you only loyal to yourself?”
Sai couldn’t see any of them.
All he could see was pink hair and (mostly?) honest smiles.
All he could hear was a boisterous laugh, and a (fatherly?) admonishment.
All he could taste was food prepared without an ounce of skill, but bucket-loads of (good?) intention and care. Those were things he could see.
Slowly, Sai’s bare fingers dipped down to his side, to a pouch he had rarely opened since the end of the War.
Smooth paper met Sai’s skin, followed by a simple graphite pencil.
As Sai began to draw, the white noise of scratching graphite filled his ears, louder than any voice.
“Hokage-sama,” Sai greeted, head lowered. He began to fall to a kneel—the stance Danzō had always required—but the voice that had filtered through his mind for the better part of the day smoothly interrupted.
“Kakashi, please.”
Sai hesitated. The voice sounded tired. “Kakashi-sama—” he restarted.
“Just Kakashi.” The accompanying sigh urged Sai to raise his head, just enough to see his new leader.
Kakashi sat cross-legged on the floor, shoulders slumped and his chin resting in one hand. Papers had been strewn around him when Sai entered the office, but they had been messily gathered into a folder at Kakashi’s side in a mere instant, somehow without making a sound.
Was it really acceptable to address the Hokage so informally?
Perhaps it was a test. Danzō had been well-known for those, but in Danzō’s case, the correct answer had always been apparent: do precisely what Danzō said. ROOT had no need for those that thought for themselves outside of the mission, or those that developed and utilized their own moral compasses. If Danzō asked something, he expected it to be done. The only test was whether his followers would obey, no matter the cost.
Sai didn’t know what kind of leader the Rokudaime Hokage of Konoha would be—but he did, to some degree, know what kind of person Hatake Kakashi was.
“Yes, Kakashi-san.” Sai rose from his bow.
Kakashi nodded subtly.
Warmth rose in Sai’s chest. He had chosen right.
“Did you bring something for me?” Kakashi asked, waving a gloved hand towards the paper in Sai’s arms.
“In a way. Would it be alright if I sat with you for a minute, Kakashi-san?”
Kakashi’s dark eyes narrowed slightly, and he cocked his head to the side. The scar that ran down the socket which had once held the sharingan was now on full-display—a constant testament to its owner’s past.
Sai’s past didn’t exist at all.
Kakashi gestured to the floor in front of him. Sai quickly sat, mirroring Kakashi’s position. He brought out his pencil—recently resharpened with his kunai—and began drawing.
Occasionally, he glanced up, scanning Kakashi’s features only to find charcoal eyes already watching him, cool and waiting.
That didn’t bother Sai; in ROOT, no one existed without many eyes on them.
Few times before, however, had Sai felt as though he had truly been seen, and never before had it been done so openly.
The sound of scratching only filled the room for two minutes, or three. Sai hadn’t needed much to complete his piece, hadn’t needed much to realize exactly what it was he had been missing—
Sai turned the paper around. Kakashi’s eyes fell down to it.
“I don’t know Konoha very well,” Sai said softly. The sun’s light was nearly gone, the last of it fading in through the Hokage’s Office windows in oranges and pinks, originating from a bright crescent nearly hidden behind the Hokages’ stone faces. “But I want to, if you’ll let me learn. Until then…” he held the sketch forward. “This is the answer to your question.”
Kakashi’s fingertips skimmed the page. They gently closed around it, careful to create no creases as he took it, holding the sketch close.
Sai’s face felt oddly warm and his heart pounded strongly as he waited for the Hokage’s response.
After several long moments, Kakashi looked up.
It wasn’t until Sai saw the way Kakashi’s mask stretched over his cheeks that he knew, for certain, that he had captured the man’s smile perfectly.
All the others, he had known—Naruto, Sakura, Yamato. He had replicated them all.
Sai had even come to learn his own smile—a real one—in the last few months of “Sai’s” existence.
Now, he had learned Kakashi’s.
Soon—he hoped—he would get the chance to learn even more. Somehow, Sai felt that the more he understood the people he called ‘friends’—the more he would understand what ‘loyalty’ truly meant.
“That’s good enough for me,” Kakashi murmured.
His voice filled Sai’s mind for a long while to come.
It filled his heart, too, with a warmth that was steadily becoming familiar.
One day, Sai was certain that he would learn the meaning for that warmth, too.
A fic for the @tenzoscabin Spring 2021 Exchange! This is for the amazing @hades-bitch, and it was so fun to write for you. <3 I chose to use the prompt Modern AU.
Tenzō nodded. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck, impeded from further descent by the plastic at his nape.
“I heard that you were recommended by Yoroi.” She tilted her head, sorrel eyes narrowing.
Once more, Tenzō nodded. That was the only way that anyone got into Otoga, after all: recommendation. Lucky for Tenzō; he hadn’t had much trouble setting himself up near Yoroi’s known haunts, and it had only taken a month’s work to pander to the man’s insatiable ego.
It had been an easy ticket in.
“Yeah. See, the problem is… Yoroi and me?” Anko said as she leaned forward, her cool breath fanning against Tenzō’s heated cheek. He couldn’t fight back a reflexive shiver. “We just don’t get along.”
This is for @lazarusii over at the Umino Hours Discord, for the 90-minute Halloween Exchange! I hope you like it! >.<
Pairing: KakaIru
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 2.2k
Tags: Romance, Japanese Mythology, Alternate Universe, Uh... mild.... spookiness?? Monsters, I don’t know
At the age of ten, Iruka had spent nearly as much time in the forests of Konoha as he had his own home. He hated sitting still, being confined. He spent hours stripping back and peeling tinder, then more hours attempting to light it with the only fire seal he knew. He practiced with his mother’s shuriken on the trees behind their house and climbed barefoot to retrieve them, rough bark scraping against the soles of his feet, forming calluses and scrapes that his father would pour medicinal cleanser over, stinging far worse than the wound itself.
It never stopped Iruka from going out again.
Sometimes, he went further than he should have.
At a certain point, the woods north-east of Konoha’s walls shifted, from soft conifers into looming evergreens and beeches that had never been cleared by man’s hand. They grew so thick around that Iruka didn’t think five of him would be able to quite reach around the bases. On one fallen trunk, he counted over a hundred rings before losing his place.
There was another difference in the trees outside of Konoha:
Some of them were scarred.
Iruka had seen pine trees damaged by hurricanes before. He had seen branches stripped thin of leaves and twigs, broken limbs dangling for a few days before crashing down to the earth.
These scars were different.
They ran lengthwise down the tree’s trunks, splitting through the bark and inches into the wood. Some of the scars were blackened—Iruka imagined they were darkened by the sun in the same way that his own scar had been—but others were a dull crimson, a shade like blood or lava peering through a crevasse. When he was ten, Iruka snuck his fingers inside one, wiggling until he could reach the innards.
They burned.
Iruka hissed and jerked back, scraping his knuckles raw against the bark. It was barely a sting in comparison to the blisters morphing his fingerprints. They throbbed in time with his heartbeat.
He crouched to the ground, ripping up a piece of moss and pressing it to the overheated skin. It did little to soothe the ache, but he clutched it tight his entire walk home. He didn’t stop walking, even as the sun set and he could barely see anything but his own feet and the occasional, glowing embers within massive oaks.
There were trees marked in different ways, too—ones whose limbs had exploded, bark splaying like water frozen from a hose. A few, a very few, were cleaved in half. Each side dipped, bowing towards the ground, until their stumps rotted and gravity dragged them down at last.
Those trees never survived.
Iruka’s father said that the others, the red ones, had been struck by lightning. He told Iruka that eventually the embers would cool into ash and the trees would grow around the wound, sealing their dead cells into themselves to use as nourishment for what still lived.
That, or they rotted into mulch.
“How long do they stay hot after a storm?”
His father hesitated. He paused in sharpening his kunai, looking out the window unseeingly, a deep furrow between his brows. “I’m not sure. A day, perhaps.”
Iruka bit his lip rather than argue, but he knew that wasn’t true; no storm clouds had darkened Konoha’s skies for the last two weeks.
Four days later, something scorched the trees again. Iruka didn’t touch them that time, but he flexed his healing hand, felt the taut pull of new skin, and wondered.
By the time Iruka heard about the Raijū, his parents were no longer alive for him to ask.
It was Anko who first described it to him: a huge wolf, with silver fur that gleamed blue with the shroud of living lightning that surrounded it. She said she heard it howl the night before the Kyuubi attack. Her father had called it the Raijū, told her to never go outside during a thunderstorm and to always sleep on her belly on dark nights.
She said that the trees weren’t struck by lightning, but scratched by the Raijū’s claws.
Iruka didn’t know about any of that—but he sat outside during the next storm, all the same, curling up under the branches of an evergreen. A rivulet of rain water trickled down from the matte leaves, onto the crown of Iruka’s head. He shivered from his scalp to his toes, drawing his legs in tight as mud began to soak into his pants.
Eventually, he must have fallen asleep.
When he awoke, dawn was approaching, and electric static lingered in the air.
He had dreamt of a thousand chirping birds, and an eye as dark as the midnight sky.
He didn’t try to meet the Raijū again.
It had been over a decade since Iruka had last been caught out in a thunderstorm. It wasn’t a nostalgic experience. Instead of huddling into a ball and waiting for lightning to strike, he was running for home. Rain beat the ground around him, but his heartbeat drowned out the sound. His sandals skidded on the slick moss that coated the trees. The chakra he channeled to the souls of his feet kept him from sliding him off, giving him the traction necessary to propel himself forward again.
The storm must have been travelling from Konoha: Iruka hadn’t seen a single cloud when he set back towards home. He would have stayed in town if he had, maybe gotten a cheap room at the local hot spring. As much as Iruka hated to admit it, Naruto leaving to train with Jiraiya had it’s good points—namely, that Iruka was no longer spending a fifth of his paychecks on ramen each week.
Now, it was too late to go back. He couldn’t outrun the storm, and he was just barely closer to Konoha than his origin. His best bet was to power through it, coming out on the other side soaked, but with less time in the forest and storm than if he tried to find shelter and failed.
He had never been scared of lightning.
It was a fine plan—until he felt at least a dozen chakra signatures pop to life in the east.
They were all grouped together, like a conglomerate of shinobi had been scooped up and teleported to the soggiest corner of the Land of Fire. Or, like a bunch of shinobi had been concealing their presences and then swooped in for an ambush.
That one was slightly more likely.
Iruka slowed to a halt, closing his eyes and focusing on the distance between them. He had a decent chance of getting away unnoticed if he curved directly west. It was the logical choice: his likelihood of taking on a dozen enemies and surviving was too close to nil for comfort, and he couldn’t bet on the majority of them being Konoha shinobi.
However… given the territory, their proximity to home—there almost certainly was a few comrades among them. If they were running the ambush then Iruka could make things far worse by attempting to interfere in a battle strategy of which he had no part.
But if they were overpowered—or if they were the victims—
There was really no choice at all.
Cloaking his chakra as best he could, Iruka dropped to lower branches and finally to the forest floor. A giant clap of thunder sounded and a stunning white bolt lit up the sky, casting the canopy in sharp relief. The trunks and leaves this low down hid Iruka in enough shadow that it was his best bet for making it to the scuffle unannounced.
He was only a few hundred yards away, throat tight and muscle tensed, when he felt the pinpoints of chakra begin to flicker.
One by one, they were snuffed out.
Within thirty seconds, only one remained.
Iruka had already unlatched his kunai’s holster. His right hand hovered by it. A cold chill ran from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.
This time, it wasn’t due to the rain.
The air felt charged, the atmosphere crackling around him and bursting in his eardrums like static. It was so loud, so unnerving, so intense—that he hardly noticed the chakra signature move towards him.
Then, he noticed.
He noticed, because just through the copse of trees, in a small clearing, moonlight filtered through the trees and cast its light on silver fur and blue lightning.
For a moment, Iruka couldn’t breathe. His fingers convulsed around the hilt of his kunai, gripping it tightly enough that his knuckles cracked, but he could move nothing else. The giant wolf stared back at him, one eye of crimson and another darker than midnight.
Iruka blinked, and the wolf was gone.
The silver and crimson and darkness all remained.
Kakashi’s hair was drenched by the rain, plastered to his face and neck, but Iruka thought he could see bright red washing away with the water. It soaked into his flak vest, turning the olive green to rust. His normal gloves were reduced to tattered strips of cloth dripping from his wrists, metal guards gone. Long, thick fingernails drew from the nail beds like claws.
Iruka nearly laughed hysterically as he thought, “maybe that’s why he only wears fingerless.”
Fortunately, the last difference from the Kakashi that Iruka liked to think he knew… it was enough to cut off any potential humor at the jugular.
The mask was gone.
The light stubble over his chin would have been invisible if not for the streak of blood that oozed from a slit across one high cheekbone, painting the follicles crimson. Torn fabric bunched underneath Kakashi’s angular jaw, and a small blemish marked just below the corner of thin lips.
Behind the lips, which were slightly parted—perhaps saying something that couldn’t force its way into Iruka’s fogged mind—were sharp, prominent canines, hand-crafted as if by a master, borne to rend flesh and breach vulnerable arteries.
Blood stained each fang.
The storm raged on. Water clumped Iruka’s eyelashes and trickled into his eyes. He blinked it away, but the scene before him didn’t change.
Now, he knew that the scents of salt and ozone, the charge that set even damp hairs on end and broke out gooseflesh along Iruka’s arms—they weren’t the storm.
The Raijū was real.
Kakashi took a step forward.
Iruka couldn’t move. His body was frozen, muscles locked as if in rigor mortis. He would have thought it was the power of the Sharingan if not for the fact that it was closed. The eyelid over it was split down the center, large gash extending from his brow to his cheek. It still glowed an angry shade, even after how many years it had been rumored to exist.
Iruka imagined it as a strike of lightning—burning embers in a dying tree.
Kakashi’s expression was no more readable without the mask, or perhaps the differences merely distracted from any emotion that might have been displayed. Iruka could tell there was something, burning within his core, swirling in a dark iris, but he couldn’t name it. It was a taste, on the tip of his tongue and sliding down his throat to settle in his stomach.
Iruka swallowed it all, drinking in every inch of Kakashi’s features even as the man—wolf—demon—approached. Carefully, steadily.
Kakashi reached him. He raised a hand. It hovered over Iruka’s collarbone, curved talons inches from his throat and the pulse that pounded in it.
Iruka remembered those hands.
He remembered that hand brushing his at the mission desk, remembered the bit of static that always seemed to jump between them. He remembered watching those fingers as they grasped a lurid orange cover. He remembered watching them curl around a glass, condensation dripping down them, and remembered wishing it was Iruka who felt their touch instead.
Now, if Kakashi touched him—he felt as though he would be seared to the bone, with a long red scar that would spell his death or his future. Either way, Kakashi could carve through Iruka and hollow his insides, replacing them with molten heat that would soon burn to ash.
"I didn't take you for the type to freeze in fear, Iruka-sensei,” Kakashi murmured.
Slowly, Iruka dragged his gaze from the lethal claw, from ivory canines. He met Kakashi’s stare. He had to swallow several times before he could find his voice, rough as though he’d been inhaling smoke. "I'm not."
Kakashi’s features barely shifted. There was no difference that Iruka could discern; perhaps it was only the flash of lightning illuminating Kakashi in stark white which made the ghostly apparition of the wolf flicker in Iruka’s vision once more. Perhaps it was Iruka’s own reflection which made Kakashi’s eye seem guarded—as if Iruka were the one readying to spring an attack.
As if Iruka had the power to do damage if he did.
"Then why are you still here?"
Over Kakashi’s shoulder, Iruka could see an ancient oak, nearly split in two. Its bark peeled from the superheated spot as if it could retract from the claw which had seared it.
Iruka remembered years of subtle touches to skin and cloth, moments that Iruka would have never known existed if they hadn’t made his blood sing and his mind fill with static. Electricity. Lightning.
Iruka remembered a thousand birds and a dark eye—a dream that had always been real.
“I’m about to find out.”
Iruka leaned forward. Their lips met at the same moment that Kakashi’s palm—claws and all—met Iruka’s throat.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Characters: Hatake Kakashi, Umino Iruka
Additional Tags: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Awkward Flirting, Romance, Umino Iruka-centric, POV Umino Iruka, Hatake Kakashi is Bad at Feelings, Canon Compliant, Getting Together, Character Study, Pining, Love Confessions, Kakashi Week 2020, lots of comfort, Kakashi just wants an excuse to see Iruka, Ok maybe he wants a little more than that, The rating MIGHT go up to M
Summary:
Brushing debris off of the note, Iruka gently unfolded it, trying not to rip the damp creases.
"Ukki-san enjoys watering three times a week, gentle dusting of his leaves, and daily haiku readings. He tells me the light from your bedroom window is perfect.
He would like to thank you for taking care of him, and tells me I owe you two favors now.
Back in twelve days.
P.S. A perfect mission report is worth at least four favors, sensei, so think of something else."
A henohenomoheji stared at Iruka in place of a signature.
(Or, Kakashi doesn't know how to ask someone to care for him, so he'll get Iruka to look after his plant as a proxy.)
