章 43: Chapter 43: Clan Heiress Arc: Three
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
I could not simply turn up at Kakashi's apartment without something to offer him. Would he understand apology flowers? It might be better to not offer him flowers that mean apologies. He probably doesn't know that one.
I stride towards the Yamanaka Flower Shop. "White tulips? Would he even care for flowers?" Knowing Kakashi, he'd probably care about food, but I didn't want to go home, and I certainly couldn't visit Toku's house. "Sensei's house?" I mumble, but no, Kiho-baachan disliked having other people cooking in her kitchen. She would allow Sensei to crush garlic on occasion, but anyone else touching her knives, her appliances, no. There would be a major freak out session.
Very well then, I'd buy takeout. I don't feel good about it, but I could not show up without food. It wouldn't feel right, somehow.
What would Kakashi eat anyway? He didn't seem to dislike much of anything. And there's a food cart across the street. "Could I get something to go, Jiisan?"
The old man behind the counter smiles. "What would you like?"
"Could I have your special?" I don't really know what to get. Between the number of houses I could visit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, not to mention Mufu-an, I don't really ever eat street food in Konoha.
"Ah, the tempura then, any specific type?"
I glance up at the menu...shrimp, kabocha, shiitake, fish, eggplant. Eggplant is his favorite food. "Eggplant." I reply. "And I suppose shrimp for me. Two orders to go, please, Jiisan."
He wraps the two orders separately and I hand over several bills. At least I had sorted the food situation. Now. Flowers.
"White tulips for forgiveness and worthiness? Wrapped in Ivy for longevity? That would probably be best. If he didn't know about it, I could always explain.
I step through the door of the Yamanaka Flower Shop with the tinkling of bells. A young Ino is watering potted plants in a corner. At the sight of a customer, she bounces over. "How are you doing today?"
"Alright..." I am not alright, but she's still a child the same age as Kiba. It would be unfair to tell her about all of my unfortunate troubles. The Hyuga. Kaa-san. My unfortunate issues with Hatake Kakashi.
"And you have food too. Two orders, are you eating with someone else?" She peers up at me with her big teal eyes.
I feel as though my soul is being examined under a very large magnifying glass. The idea is very uncomfortable, especially since she's four. "Yes. I am going to eat dinner with someone else."
"Ooh!" She claps her hands together. "Is it a boy?" Inoichi-san, what are you teaching this child? She is four.
"Yes. He has silver hair." I whisper. And only one eye uncovered, and he has a scar and a very very symmetrical face. If you could actually see his face when you're older he'd probably be just your type. Pretty, broody, and broken. I pause to consider it for a moment. Although perhaps the idea that he's started to read porn in public and is about thirteen to fourteen years older than you would be a turn off.
"He must be old then." Ino decides. "That's so boring!" She pouts up at me. "Why do you want flowers for an old man anyway?" She twirls around in a circle. "Flowers are for people you love!"
I burst out into laughter. Kakashi? Old? He's only what? Nearly eighteen? Oh I have to tell him this story. "Can I not love an old person?" Love is not why I am buying flowers, but the idea that old people didn't deserve flowers is a bit disconcerting. And just plain dumb.
"Oh, Hana-chan." Inoichi-san sweeps into the front of the room. "What's so funny, Cosmos?" He pokes Ino's cheek, and smiles. "Tell me why Hana's laughing."
Ino pouts and crosses her arms over her chest. "Hana wants to get flowers for some old guy with gray hair and when I told her that it's silly to love old people she started laughing her head off."
Well, if you put it that way, I sound like an idiot. "It's Hatake Kakashi." I clarify for the raised eyebrows Inoichi-san sends me. "He's not that old."
Inoichi-san whistles. "Well, he is...hmmm...eight or nine years older than you." He grins at me. "Didn't think you'd be admiring the Hatake Prodigy, Hana-chan."
I blush from my neck to the roots of my hair. "I'm sending him apology flowers for ignoring him for two months!" I wave my hands around. "I do not like him." And I don't. Kakashi is awful and a troll.
"Sure. Sure. And you think the sky is green, and your dogs are awful." He straightens up. "Which flowers?"
"White tulips wrapped in ivy." It is probably the best option. There aren't any ostentatious colors and the bouquet would convey everything that I intended anyway.
"Perfect love for all eternity?" Now on second thought, this is a horrible idea. Inoichi leans towards me. "Are you sure you don't like him?"
"No..." I moan. "Forgiveness and worthiness wrapped in longevity, Inoichi-san."
He pats my head. "Sure. That's exactly what you mean."
Following the debacle about flowers, I find that it's almost too humiliating to show up at his apartment. Would he think that this thing means perfect love for all eternity? I shudder just thinking about it.
What will I do if that's how he takes it? Throw myself in the Naka River?
Eventually though, I square my shoulders and set off into the afternoon. "I can't be this stupid. Of course, he wouldn't think of it that way. I'm being really stupid."
I rap politely on his door this time, instead of attempting to break it down. "Kakashi-san?" There's no reply. Maybe he's out? I pull chakra towards my nose.
No, he isn't out. That's the smell of wet dog, faint scent of blood, and...him. He's in there. Is he ignoring me? "Kakashi-san? Stop ignoring me please? I'm sorry."
There is still no reply. I sit down on his doorstep. He has to come out sometime. There's the tapping of nails on the wooden floorboards and then Pakkun's voice from behind the door. "Please break the door down." He sounds a little worried, but I'm not sure I heard him properly.
"What?" Did he just tell me to break Kakashi's door down? Wouldn't that make him more mad at me?
"Please break the door down." Pakkun repeats. "Boss has locked it from the inside and he's getting really bad."
That...tells me absolutely nothing. Except of course, that I would need to break the door down. Okay...then.
I examine the door. "Now. I don't want to do lasting damage to this. How should I attempt to remove it?" I can't pick locks. That's very not ninja of me. I will have to learn that for later. "Pakkun?" I ask. "Does he have traps on the windows?" Sure, there's only all of two windows in his entire apartment, and one of them is over his bed so I don't want to crawl in that one since it definitely has traps.
"Yes. Boss has traps on the windows." Well, that's paranoid ninja for you right there.
"I'm assuming you can't unlock the door by yourself?" It doesn't hurt to ask.
"No, I can't reach and no one else knows how." Pakkun replies.
"Can anyone else reach? Maybe you could tell them how?" If I didn't have to break down the door, I shouldn't. If I break down the door, he'll need a new door.
"No. They're all stupid from hunger." Pakkun sighs. "I'm the only sane one left."
"Just how long has Kakashi-san been in there?" Did he run out of dog food? Is his refrigerator all sad again?
"About a week." That's too long. What's he been doing in there and why isn't he at the door to be a troll yet?
Pakkun had said his condition was bad. Is bad. "What side of the door are the hinges on?" I ask.
"The left side." So the right side for me then.
I set down the tempura and the flowers. "Step back, like six feet away from the door, Pakkun." I call and listen as he obediently moves away.
I push as much lightning chakra as I can towards my finger tips and ram them onto the right side of the door. Predictably, the lightning finds the metal as it is the path of least resistance. If I can just melt the hinges off, I can reshape them later, maybe. He won't have to replace the entire door.
And this way, since metal conducts, I don't have to worry so much about electrocuting my hands again. "The metal is melting." Pakkun reports from the other side of the door.
I stop wasting chakra. With my left hand curls into a fist and I tap the door. It falls down, and I cough. He's definitely not opened the door or the windows in a week. The air's stale in here.
I pick up the two peace offerings I'd brought, and step over the threshold. The very air is gloomy. "So what's wrong with him?"
"You brought food?" Pakkun eyes the takeout bag I have with obvious interest. "Could you share?"
"I bought him eggplant tempura." I offer. "You can have mine? It's shrimp." If he hasn't eaten in a week he probably needs to.
"Boss hates tempura." Guruko offers.
I sigh. "It figures." I set the bag of takeout on the floor and unlatch the boxes. The dogs pile around.
Then, still armed with flowers, I head off towards his room, and pray that I do not have to melt the hinges off the door a second time.
As it turns out, Kakashi is, in fact, that paranoid. I melt a second set of hinges with a deal more effort than the first, and the heavy oak door falls down with a dull thump. I step over the threshold into what might have been a neat room at some point. There's several sets of ANBU uniforms littered over the floor, sharp kunai, a shuriken embedded in the wall...It looks like he's lost his mind to be honest.
Kakashi may or may not be passed out on his bed, but at least he's alive. I set the flowers on the thing that passes for his dresser and possibly bedside table. He's still in his ANBU uniform, just minus the armor.
Where did he go, what did he do, and how did he end up like this?
I press a hand to his forehead. Fever. Definitely high. I turn to check if he has a medicine cabinet and if so, if he had any antibiotics or at least something besides soldier pills. I do not get that far.
A hand latches onto my wrist. I swear if you even say Rin, I will tell the hospital to come and get you. No mercy.
"Why're you here?"
He hasn't said Rin just yet though, so I do my best not to get angry at him. "Let go of my wrist, Kakashi-san. I'm going to go find you some water."
He blinks at me. "Didn't you say you were busy, Hana-chan?" Oh, so he does remember who I am. That's a shock. And as I suspected, he is not pleased with me.
"We can talk about that later." Later when you don't look like you're about to die. I pull my hand from his hold and wander off to find a mug and the kitchen sink.
I pass Kakashi a cup of water when I get back. I also set down that one mismatched chair by his bedside. "Sick people should stay hydrated." I murmur. He'd winced before, when I'd spoken at a normal tone, which meant that he is either feeling guilty or that he has a headache or probably both. "Also, I'm very sorry, but I had to break down two doors to get to you."
He raises an eyebrow, and I gesture towards the door of his bedroom. "As you can see, I melted the hinges off the door, so the wood should still be salvageable, if you want to stick it back on later."
He settles back on his pillows and says nothing. He looks vaguely alright though, so it's probably safe to leave him to find some antibiotics at a corner store. I make for the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" He's attempting to be commanding about something, but given that he is an invalid that could barely sit himself up without a great deal of effort, I think I'm justified to not listen to him.
"The corner store to find you some medicine that you despise." And now it feels like I've fallen down the Rabbit Hole. Late. Late. Late. For a very important date, Alice.
Less than half an hour later, I'm back, with more dry dog food and what passes for Ibuprofen in this world. It comes in white tablets at least, and it doesn't have anything to do with quinolone as far as I am aware, but the people do accept it as medicine for the common cold, thus, I am willing to assume that it bears some resemblance.
I make sure to heat the water in the microwave this time. "Here." I offer. "You might want to take these so you don't die."
He glances up at me, the sharingan eye still firmly shut. "But what about the mask?"
I pull it off and throw it across the room before he has time to react. Granted, his reaction speed isn't great right now, I could probably kill him if I desired to do so very deeply, but for me to do it that easily meant that he has at least some measure of trust that I wouldn't stab him in the neck with a kunai. "You shouldn't even be wearing a mask when you have breathing difficulty." I mutter. "Please, at least know the basics of how to take care of a common cold if you hate hospitals so much, Kakashi-san."
His mouth curls upwards in the lazy semblance of a smile. "You have a terrible bedside manner, Hana-chan. You should never become a doctor."
My face falls into my hands of its own volition. "You're going to give me a headache at this rate." My eyes slide shut. "This has been an awful day."
I wake up the next morning in a bed. And as soon as I realize where I am, I scramble to get out of it as quickly as possible.
Kakashi...is sitting in the chair where I am sure I fell asleep, with a sleeping Pakkun on his lap, holding...that idiot bouquet of flowers that I'd brought. "Perfect love?" He asks as my feet find his floorboards.
"Forgiveness and worthiness." I counter. "And the ivy's for longevity." I glare at him from the corner of my eye. "And don't worry, Inoichi-san already teased me about all the possible alternate meanings."
He smiles, again, a full smile because he still hasn't put on a mask. "Did he?" He calmly strokes one of the wilting tulips. "Did he tell you that ivy also meant wedded bliss?" Indeed. If I look around maybe I'll find a potion that says drink me. Am I Alice? Is that it?
"Well." Replies my smart mouth. "Did you think I was congratulating you on your marriage to Gai-san?"
Kakashi looks poleaxed, but recovers with grace. His laughter rings out, rich and deep. It's only the second time in six, nearly seven years, that I've heard Kakashi laugh. "You're so cruel, Hana-chan." He pins me with a mock serious look. "I will have you know that I am very popular."
The words only bring to mind many min-Gais who all want to challenge him to some sort of duel surrounding his masked, soft core porn reading self. "No!" I shriek, and laugh until my sides split. "No, there can only ever be one Gai-san in the world or it'll implode!"
The idea of multiple Gais makes Kakashi look nauseous, and I can only imagine what the introduction of Lee to his life would do to him. I sit down on the floor and howl with laughter. Oh the world will mock you yet, Hatake Kakashi. Take that you eternal troll.
And then there really is no help for it. I have to go home. I wonder if Kaa-san is still mad at me.
I'm surprised that there was no searching party. I couldn't have been that hard to find. The morning air is cold, and there's a light fall of snow on the ground. The first snowfall of the year, and mostly likely the last as the New Year and the traditional Winter Festival is fast approaching.
I step over the threshold, and suddenly I'm swept into Kaa-san's arms. "Do you know how worried I was when you didn't come home last night?" She whispers into my hair. And then she pulls back. "Did you spend the night with the Hatake Boy?" Curse Kakashi for wrapping me in his blankets. That just makes me smell entirely like him, and there's no way for me to explain any of that to Kaa-san without it sounding cringe worthy. There's a note of resignation in her voice. "You really want to add him to your pack don't you?" More like he's been going out of his way to add me.
"I went to apologize to him because I'd been mean to him earlier." I protest. "And he was sick, and then I fell asleep." And I suppose I've made a friend in Hatake Kakashi, given that he has willingly added that second chair just for me, if Gai is to be believed.
"I can't say that I like it." Kaa-san sits down in a chair by the kitchen table. "I still have to talk to you about yesterday though."
I hope that we wouldn't have to. I really do, but problems don't solve themselves. I nod. "Yes, Kaa-san."
She runs a hand through her hair, and the burnt orange sunset of feathers gleam in the early morning light. "I tried once, you know, to change the dynamics of the Hyuga Clan." Her eyes are distant. "You have no idea how much I protested Hizashi's murder." Kaa-san hadn't been that close to him. She'd said so, but still they had been a team. "But it's more than that, Little Nose." And her shoulders are hunched, and while her expression is neutral her eyes are haunted. "You remember my genin teammates?" She asks.
"You told me they were dead, and you didn't want to talk about them." She'd said she didn't like them either.
"I never liked Hikari or Hikasa." She frowns. "They'd always been too sullen." This collection of phrases didn't mean very much. They might have been a string of pearls in the morning sunlight, but none of it would truly matter. "They were twins. Branch House Hyuga twins. They failed a mission right before the third war, and they paid with their lives." And suddenly the parallels Kaa-san must have seen yesterday between me and her younger self are a little clearer now.
"You yelled at Hideya-sama for them." I say, and the horror dawns afresh. I could see it in my mind's eye. A young Kaa-san screeching some version of my speech at Hyuga Hideya, and two boys dying for the crime of being defended by a young Inuzuka. What horror that must have been. And suddenly I am only terribly grateful that the years have taught Hideya to be a shade more merciful. What would I have done if Hideya had killed Koma-senpai and Haya-senpai?
"They weren't going to die, but he was angry." Kaa-san sets her head in her hands. "I was there when they were tortured. It was not...not pretty, but he didn't kill them until I left. Their deaths were marked as an accident, but I knew that Hyuga Hideya's hand was in it." Kaa-san had grown up with them even if she wasn't close to them. They had been important somehow. "I didn't want you to make the same mistakes I did." The corner of her mouth pulls upwards. "But I suppose that you are as much my daughter as you are Kai-baka's. Sometimes you don't look before you leap."
And why Kaa-san had been so angry with my actions is so horrifyingly clear. "You didn't want me to know that my actions had caused the death of someone I cared for."
"No, Little Nose. How could I let that be a cross you bear?"
That afternoon, Kiba pulls me down to the kennels towards the puppies. "Come on, Neechan! Kaa-san agreed to let me have a puppy!" He turns towards me, and my somewhat horrified thoughts. "Is there something wrong?"
I manage a smile for him. This day is a happy occasion for Kiba-chan. I can't ruin it for him. "No, why would there be?" I ruffle his hair. "Can you think of anything wrong?"
"Neechan being sad." He says, and crosses his arm. "Neechan being sad is wrong." My sweet little brother, oh how you've grown.
"I will not be sad." I say. "And you need a new puppy."
But he is still a child, and the thought of a puppy has him bouncing down the street again. "A puppy! A puppy!" He crows. "I get a puppy of my own!"
The clan members that we pass wave and smile at us, and Kiba takes it as a sign of great things to come. He grabs my hand and tows me down towards the kennels. "Come Neechan! The puppies are waiting!" The clan is open at last.
They will treat Kiba to the childhood he deserves.
When we enter the kennels one of the white puppies detaches himself from the crowd of little white puppies and comes racing towards us. "Boy! Boy! Boy!"
Kiba turns to me. "Can I pick him?"
I'm caught in the flash back of meeting the Triplets and their wide eyed and eager attention. New friend? New friend? Play! "Is he your friend, Kiba-chan?" I ask.
Kiba nods. "Can hear him best of all the puppies. He says 'Boy! Boy! Boy!"
"You'll have to tell him your name." I pat the white puppy on the head. Your name will be Akamaru soon. "Then he'll know to call you that."
Kiba turns toward the puppy. "I'm Kiba." He announces. "What's your name?"
The puppy tilts his head to the side. "Name?"
Kiba looks back at me. "What's his name?" He wants me to name his puppy?
"Akamaru." I crouch down to pat the puppy in the head. "Your name is Akamaru."
"Akamaru?" He barks, and stares at me with large, intelligent eyes. "Who're you?"
Ichi steps in front of me. "Hana's mine." Ni bumps my left hip. "And mine!" San crowds around my other side. "And mine!"
"You guys!" I protest. "He's just a little puppy."
Ichi glances at me with a sage expression. "Little puppies become big puppies and then they stop being puppies. And then they want to own things." He sniffs. "Like those awful dogs that the Irritant has." Kakashi's ninken? Did the Triplets talk with Pakkun, Guruko and the rest of Kakashi's pack?
"You still shouldn't be mean." I card my fingers through his fur behind his ears. "You're my brothers. Nothing will ever change that."
Kiba picks Akamaru up, and tucks him close to his chest. "At any rate." He announces, very seriously. "Akamaru's mine!"
I laugh. "Yes, Kiba-chan. Akamaru is your partner."
Later that week, I'm reading theory about how to combine chakra natures from a book that's chunin clearance level from the Archives at my favorite childhood training ground. Tou-san's notes are spotty, and I get the feeling that the entirety of his work elsewhere, probably his own head, because he had never expected me to learn only from his notes until he was on his deathbed. He probably wanted to teach me himself. The thought does not sting as much as it would have just a few years ago.
"So chakra natures can be combined in a rudimentary fashion by collecting one type of chakra in one hand, and then combining it with the other type of chakra in the other hand." But it does require that I be able to channel two different chakra natures at once. I have yet to manage the ability to split my focus and push earth chakra towards one hand and lightning chakra towards the other.
I'm still musing upon the problem when Koma-senpai interrupts. "Hana-chan?"
He doesn't look good. But he does look better than the last time I'd seen him. "Koma-senpai?" I stand up rather quickly and rush over towards him. "Are you alright? Do you need something?"
He laughs softly at my eagerness. "I will be fine, Hana-chan. I need to ask for your help." He takes me by the shoulders, but his grip is loose enough that I could pull away at any time. "You're the only one who can help me."
What help does he need that I can give him? "How?" I ask.
"Follow me." He straightens and begins to lead me towards the Forest of Death. "We have to go to a different training ground for this." And I am confused, but I follow. This is Koma-senpai. Whatever it is that he wants it cannot be that bad.
We end up at what must be a clearing that he'd already made somewhere close to the edge of the training field. "You'll have to take me to Konoha General after this." He smiles ruefully at me. "I'm sorry you have to see this Hana-chan. Wait half an hour here with me."
And then he pulls out a kunai and very deliberately slashes it over both of his eyes. The action is so quick I don't have any time to react. The very next moment he gouges out one eye with his bare hands and rips chakra enhanced scratches across that portion of his face. "KOMA-SENPAI!" I shriek and race forwards. He's cut them too deeply. He needs medical help if he ever wants to see again even in just the eye that's still in his head.
If he ever wants to see again.
He grabs onto my elbows. "I'm very sorry, Hana-chan." But his hold is strong. I am unable to twist away, and here in the Forest of Death there is no way that anyone would hear us. His face looks like it has been mauled.
"Why are you doing this?"
His eyes are still weeping tears of blood. It trails down his cheeks and his chin and drips down onto the forest floor in what seems like rivers. It's a ticking countdown of minutes and seconds until no one, not even the head practitioner at Konoha General can repair the damage he's done to his eyes. The feeling is almost surreal. Is he crazy? He won't ever be able to see again at the end of half an hour.
"Hana-chan." He says, and he's perfectly calm. "Please, sit down and wait with me." He wipes away some of the blood. "I'll pass out before thirty minutes is up. He sighs. "It is very painful, but listen to me, Hana-chan. If you want to help me you have to drag me out of here in twenty minutes, not before." And then he pulls me closer to him so I don't have to see his weeping eyes. "I am choosing my family." He announces very carefully. "I cannot serve in ANBU if I am blind." He's willing to blind himself if it means he doesn't serve Danzo?
"You can't see when you're blind either!" I do not protest his hold on me though. I do not want to see what he has done to himself because I am not strong enough to help him. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Koma-senpai. You're driven to do this because I've failed you.
He laughs, and even his laughter is soft. "I am asking you to tell a lie for me, Hana-chan." His voice is weaker now. "I was here training. I was mauled by a bear. They will not believe that." And it's only now that I notice the dead bear on the other side of the clearing. " They will believe that I have set this up on purpose, but there's no real proof beyond what they believe. And you had a meeting with me here, that's why you are here to drag me back to Konoha General, but it will be too late. That's why you're covered with blood." He's planned for everything. And I can understand his devotion to family.
"Koma-senpai, are you sure?" The fact that Koma-senpai is entrusting me with the rest of his life weighs heavily. The fact that he, the upstanding and prideful senpai, is asking me to tell a lie for him weighs even worse. There are only ten minutes left. If I ran, I could still make the threshold. I could drag him back. They would have a good chance of saving his eyes.
"Yes." He whispers, and then I know that he's no longer conscious. I can make it back. I can make it back. And it would doom him to serving Danzo.
Can I save his eyes and kill his soul?
I knew what service to Danzo would do to him. He would become exactly the same as every mindless ROOT Ninja, doomed to commit subversive acts against Konoha's welfare. I knew that he didn't want that fate.
He has taken the last option he and I could see open to him. I will help you, Koma-senpai. For you, for Toku, for Haya-senpai and your parents, I will tell this lie.
But this is my failure. This is my cross to bear. This is my price.
My heart hardens. Shimura Danzo. One day I will see you cast down, and all that you have built torn apart.
This is my vow to you.
I stand, at the end of thirty minutes, and I begin the run back to Konoha General, Koma-senpai slung over my shoulders.
Our arrival creates panic inside the hospital, and Haya-senpai is clearly distraught, but over Koma-senpai's prone form she flashes me a grateful smile, and mouths the words thank you with more feeling than the story that I've yet to tell would deserve.
And I know, in that moment, that Koma-senpai did not act alone. He'd at least entrusted his beloved twin with the truth of his actions.
I could only nod before I am hustled off to the Hokage's office.
"Hyuga Koma has gone blind." The Hokage pins me with a stern look through the steam from his pipe.
"They cannot save his eyes?" I ask. This is my part to play. They do not expect an Inuzuka capable of duplicity. "They really can't? Not with all the ability they have available to them?" I bury my face in my hands. "I should have been sooner. I'm so sorry, Hokage-sama. Koma-senpai wanted me to meet him but I was too caught up in my training, I missed the meeting time." The tears that I weep in the Hokage's office are frighteningly real, but they are more than tears of grief. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't strong enough, and now someone else has to pay the price.
"Inuzuka-chan." The Sandaime sets down his pipe, and clears his desk of papers. "This may be difficult for you to believe, but we do not believe that Hyuga Koma was mauled by a bear." I know. I was there to see it.
I keep my head down. I sob. "But who else could it have been? Who else would have done something so terrible? Koma-senpai said it was the bear!" He did say it was the bear, that is a truth. My own eyes had seen differently, but Koma-senpai had never said that his injuries were self inflicted.
"You were here once to tell me that you did not believe that Hyuga Koma thought it was an honor to serve Elder Shimura." I did say that didn't I? "This injury makes it difficult for him to do that, doesn't it? Don't you know of any other way that the injury could have come about?"
"He was always proud of being ANBU." I whisper, and my hands clutch the edge of my seat until my knuckles are white. "He loved serving this village. His injuries now make it difficult for him to ever be a ninja again." I let my hair fall forwards. "He lived by the will of fire. He wanted to die for you." And that is true, but what is truer still is that Koma-senpai, if he could not accomplish any of those things, would prefer to choose his family. He would choose his family over the clan, but this is not an attack against the village. As far as I am concerned, all the ninjas in ROOT have lost the ability to call their actions working for the village. "How else would he have been injured?"
"And I truly regret his situation." The Sandaime steeples his hands over his desk, and he looks so old, so very tired. He has led Konoha through two wars. But I can feel so little sympathy for him. And what is your regret made of?
Is it like mine? Made of ashes and burned dreams? "I'm sure Koma-senpai would appreciate your concern, Hokage-sama."
"This must have been a harrowing experience for you as well." The old man under the hat sighs. "Make sure to take a few days off before you run another mission."
"Yes of course, Hokage-sama." I've been dismissed.
I rise and go
A.N. A lot happens in this chapter. We have Hana and Kakashi interactions through the roof. (Check out the one shot regarding Kakashi POV in Ashen if you haven't already.) Tsume and some explanations for her actions last chapter. Kiba finally gets Akamaru. And Hyuga Koma, he needs about a lifetime of hugs for his actions. That and the Sandaime and Hana having a conversation. The Sandaime knows that what Koma did was a measure of protest and he's rather shocked at the extremes that his rather mild mannered ANBU Tiger has taken 'does not see it as an honor'. He does think that perhaps he needs to know why...but then Koma staged such a cover up that it is rather difficult to ask why.
Thank you to WhiteFang001 (As it turns out, the Hyuga drama did not come to a head last chapter. And the Kakashi weirdness is sort of addressed.), LadyScatty (Yep, well no murder has taken place this chapter. Hana does not get a break. And Kakashi is...almost kind, but still sufficiently a troll. Also, it's really cool that you're Algerian! I take French at school-I'm really bad at it though, so that's why it was interesting to me.), rickrossed (No, it's perfectly acceptable to hope that terrible things happen to Danzo. Most of the fandom hate him for very good reason. Koma does not get double sealed, whether his predicament now is better though...entirely debatable.), snidekick (I hope the Kakashi-Hana interactions were nice.), Fuchslady (On occasion FFnet doesn't say that the story is updated when it is. This is a thing for frequently updating stories, so just check to see if you've read the latest chapter or not. And I do think the Kakashi interactions were fun this chapter. I mean, what's there not to like about melting hinges off of doors?), Guest (Welcome to Bloodless!), libraryrockerr (Their scheming ends in tragedy this time. For Koma not for them.) and Yuki Sou (Welcome to Bloodless! I update rather fast.) for reviewing!
And for everyone who favorited and followed!
~Tavina.
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