A shinobi is a high school student like another - 22

'Schlafe mein klein - Schlafe gut - Schlafe gut' 'Schlafe gut (Epilog)' Janus, Schlafende Hunde

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Most of the time... most of the time there was nothing. There  was nothing, not even darkness, or memories, or anything else. Maybe I forgot, too. And when there wasn't nothing, well... it's hard to explain. Sometimes I was conscious just long enough to realize I had been unconscious the moment before. Other times, I was conscious just long enough to realize I wasn't feeling anything.

I don't how long it lasted.

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The TV was on.

You'll notice by the way that there's always a TV switched on, straight in your field of vision, and it's the first thing you see and notice. The color of the wall, if there's a window, what's the weather like outside, if there's someone else with you in the room, no-one cares. There's the TV. And then, there's never the sound up. But it's switched on on the CNN channel or one similar because there's always a channel like this wherever you are.

I needed a few minutes to make my mind go at a slower and somewhat less hysterical tempo and really watch the TV. The videos, of a rather poor quality, seemed to have been broadcasted in an endless loop. Don't ask me how I knew this - maybe I had already saw them a thousand time but didn't remember it. A burning building, firemen doing their best, one more explosion, an hysterical teenager, a dark shape... wait a bit - a dark and smoking human shape which jumped from a window carrying something, which fell to the ground and didn't get up; a second dark shape and then someone must have shut off the camera because everything went black.

I blinked my eye, suddenly aware of the tiny move. And suddenly aware that beside the tube that was breathing for me, I could feel next to nothing. My first reaction was to sit up. My body didn't cooperate and didn't even seem to understand my brain's order. Nothing moved.
I knew this ceiling, this walls, the window at the foot of the bed.

I knew this feeling of lightness, of my-body-but-not-my-body.

I realized I had closed my eye only when I opened it again. And I didn't swallow a puff of oxygen put almost directly in my lungs quite in time, which made me want to cough, which blocked the second puff - it hurt, down inside.

"... 'kashi, Kakashi, take it easy, calm down and breathe..."

I noticed and heard Rin only when she put a hand on my chest, forcing me to calm down. I did as she ordered, the tube leaving with one deep breath, my throat raw after it. The first breathe I took on my own made me tear up and cough. Rin put an oxygen mask on my face - she had kept talking and talking, but I hadn't heard her.

I could feel everything. I could feel everything and it wasn't exactly good news.

I forced myself to breathe slowly, trying to deal with the pain. Promise, I won't jump from a window ever. Or from a flaming building. But the bad guys, I can't do anything about it.

I vaguely realized I was gone back to la-la land.

The kid!

How could I have forgot about the kid?!

"Rin," I wanted to say. All that managed to get out was a low croak - I wasn't about to say anything understandable. I felt my lips chap some more, and I didn't even wanted to thing about what was sliding in the back of my throat.

I knew Rin was next to me, even if I didn't dared move a bit - the pressure on my left hand was enough.

Shit.

The guys in black on the TV - the video was still running - it was Zabuza and me. Talk about a secret organization. Why those images hadn't been forbidden already? And the guys who had attacked me in the building, had they been picked up by our forces? How long had I stayed out? What had happened after? And the kid, the kid...

I croaked again, and it turned into a short lived moan of pain. I would have cried with frustration if I wasn't already being crying - an annoying side-effect of the cocktail disorientation and painkillers; it was always make me cry like a child.

I would have appreciated to have an inventory of fixtures, and how much I would have to cough up to be back on my feet - 'cause just with what I could feel, I wasn't about to get out of here with a mere new coat of paint.

Rin hadn't stopped talking. I hadn't grasp anything, beside that Tsunade would be here in a minute. I was thirsty, oh so thirsty, but I was even more afraid of swallowing.

The window was white, totally and completely white. It had to snow - again.

Tsunade was here. I had to have blacked out for an instant, because she wasn't there and the next second she was. I didn't like the expression she was wearing. She was too relieved, too happy - I could see it in her eyes. What had happened? At least now the pain was bearable.

I tried not to move. I just stared at her, until she said what I wanted to know. She lowered her face, sighing, before bringing two plastic cup - one with a straw, the other full of ice chips. She exchanged the mask for tubes in my nose which were running on my face and itching. The ice chips on my lips were a gift from the kami. I would have kissed her, if I could move. My neck seemed strangely stiff.

"I suppose you want to know everything," she said, from where she had took a seat, next to Rin, right in front of me. I couldn't have moved my head anyway.

I hate being vulnerable and weak like that. A napkin blow would have been enough to put me down, if I couldn't manage to do it on my own first. I kept on staring at her - Rin had took the ice from her and was feeding them to me. She ended by talking, giving her diagnostic like me giving a report - cold and to the point.

"Second degree burns on the right arm, the neck, the anterior and posterior faces of the upper torso, as well as on the face. Ecchymosis almost everywhere, cuts which needed stitches on the head and abdomen."

She swallowed. She wasn't currently telling me everything but I would know at a time or another. I knew from where was coming most of my wounds - burns: from the fire, bruises: from the fight and the 'jumping by the window', cuts: from the fight too probably, strange I hadn't felt them at the time. I was rather surprised I hadn't broken anything. She continued.

"I could speed the healing of the burns of about 50 per cent, and the stitches will come off in two to three days' time. The rest will heal naturally."

She stopped there, and I closed my eye. She had told me enough for now.

I carefully felt the degree of humidity of my mouth, and deemed it enough for what I needed.

"The kid?" I rasped out, coming more like a croaking hiss than like words.

They froze suddenly. It was enough for me, they didn't need to say anything.

"Oh, Kakashi, I'm sorry..."

No, no, shut up, don't say anything, don't , don't, SHUT UP! Not being able to produce more than hisses and low croaks was maddening, and the pain rising from my chest with each breath was only adding to the non-physical pain.

Some of my hisses must have been coherent enough, because they didn't try to say anything more.

I cursed my own uselessness, later, a want to scream and yell tightening my chest. And this, even if my logical brain kept on yelling 'till deaf that it had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Obito.

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I had woken up on the 27th of December, three days after the fire. I had the details of it only when Zabuza came two days later.

Kamis be blessed, he didn't mention the kid.

The reason why Tsunade had been so worried, was that I had stopped breathing - and it happened in Zabu-man's arms. I saw the moment when this big beast of him nearly cried, when he entered my room. He covered it with jokes and bullshitting, then gave me the full debriefing - and that against all rules and regulations - ; he knew as well as me how we hated having to stay on the side and in the dark.

The fire was evidently the act of an arsonist - the firesquads had found gaz tanks in the ruins; that could have been normal if said tanks hadn't been five and too full, ready to blow up. And then, all the flames hadn't been natural ones - not natural as in 'katon', the fire jutsus.
There was some fucking missing-nins with Otsuka. 'Cause, of course, it was Otsuka we had to thank for the show. The war had exposed itself, and the first move of the enemy had been to expose us - or, at least, to try to expose us.

Zabu-man gave me the why about the videos on TV. A part of the team had managed to stop the cameras or to scramble their video, but one smart ass and his mobile phone had escaped the net. Before one of the heads of services or one of our undercover agents realized it, the phone video was the joy of every TV channel. To shut it at this point would have raised more questions and troubles than what the document was already raising on his own, so they had left it. From Zabuza, it had been on no-stop for two days, and was still called up in the news, even five days after the fire.

The craziest theories were running about the 'men in black' - and we had done nothing to stop them, even making up and throwing one or two of our own in the lot. Our organization couldn't come out. We would get the Human Rights people, and every single imaginable laws organizations breathing down our necks, and  throwing sticks in our wheels. We're always on a precocious balance between legal and illegal - and it goes more often than not to the latter, seeing as we fight the 'bad guys' on their field with their weapons most of the time. For the public, the ninjas died out with the end of the intervillages wars, and it was better for everyone that it stayed that way.

The video was just adding some fuel to the urban legends, and to the fire of those who were seeing conspiracies everywhere. For now, it could be controlled.

Zabuza didn't seem convinced. And all of this was flirting a bit to close to politics for my tastes.

Uchiha hadn't risked any kind of public announcement; he was contenting himself with doing his job. The security teams had been doubled. Uchiha's wife and Itachi hadn't stepped out of their secondary residence, in Konoha's older districts. Their family had came, and from what Zabuza had understood while leaving his ears open, it hadn't exactly gone well. Reno himself had came to the HQ to ask for a team specifically for Itachi, fearing he would do something to himself.

The King was human finally. Saying this to myself didn't gave me any satisfaction. It didn't gave me anything.

I had the feeling he was feeling as responsible as me for his little brother's death when the real responsible's ones didn't care shit about it.
The kid's name was Sasuke.

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I decided to move on the 30th, at a moment when I was finally alone. There was always Rin or Tsunade by my side. Rin had stayed next to me for the whole three days I was out of it.

The bed moved beneath me when I sat up, and I carefully waited for the room to stop spinning around me before turning to stand up. I took the time to take off all the tubes and others IV Tsunade stuck on me. I was feeling like a pincushion. I even had tubes in places I would have rather not have them.

I clearly felt the difference between a oxygen-flavored breath and a regular one. My lungs throbbed - Tsunade must have forgot to say some little things.

Standing up was something of a challenge - I was grasping the bed with one hand, the other one refusing to cooperate, waiting for the room to stop turning and turning. Then I walked like an old man, limping terribly - my right hip looked like someone had crushed red and blue tubes of paint on it - to the tiny bathroom in my room.

I wanted the mirror.

I didn't recognized the ghost who stared back at me. His head was wrapped from top to eyebrow on one side, and from top to cheekbone on the other. He had pinpoints of livid burn scar tissue on all the exposed part of his face, and when looking at it closely, it looked like the contour of a mask.

I looked like shit. I looked like a pale corpse, a living mummy. But the thing that really disturbed me, was that when I passed my hand on my head, on the bandage, I could feel nothing but skin. My hair had burned away. How was I going to hide now?

I'm hopeless, ain't I?

I won't relate the earful I got when Tsunade found me up. And I won't relate the second earful she gave me, about my food habits - or, rather, my nonexistent food habits. I didn't weight enough, I didn't have enough various vitamins and so and so, I has putting my health at a risk. She threatened to make me see a shrink to keep my place. I saw the bluff for what it was. She was more worried than anything else.

And then, she told me what was wrong with the little lungs of mine; she was suspecting internal burns, which, if it had touched the internal tissues of the lungs and not just the trachea like she thought, could evolve into pneumonia and permanent respiratory deficiency. Great. I got a little seance of laying on of her hands and she insisted I stayed under oxygen and IV till I could get out.

I still had a week to stay here till she was satisfied - truth to be told, it was the maximum amount of time I had agreed on staying here, and I was ready to make off if she complained - and I could go back to my little life. Well, not exactly; I would go back to school, but service and missions were off limits until my body got back to normal. I would just have to exchange training sessions with rehabilitation session for my neck and arm got back to a normal range of movement. And said sessions would be with Shizune. Oh joy.

I wanted to get out of here. Staying a bit too long in one place got this effect on me. And then I wanted to see Iruka.

My things had been piled up on the chair Rin had used, my phone put on the top. I hadn't answered a single message he had sent me. I didn't knew how. I didn't knew with what.

I busied a very large part of my time with sleeping. It kept me from thinking.

I blew up at Rin on New Year's Day. She had been doing her damned best to persuade me not to feel guilty and took on  all the blame about... about what had happened, I had enough of hearing her and had replied with my new raspy and low voice things I shouldn't have said and regretted - but I realized that after of course, once the anger had given way to exhaustion.

I had enough of being there - too much bad memories, both old and younger.

The kid's name had been Sasuke.
 
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Zabuza came to see me again the day before the day everyone was supposed to go back to school from Christmas' break.

I looked a bit more like a human being - and I as feeling a bit more like a human too - than the last time Zabu-man had seen me; Raidou had found me a kind of cap-like woolen hat with a large visor that I was wearing askew and low on my face and Tsunade had lost the game between me who wanted to go back to real clothes and her who wanted me to stay in hospital pajamas. I hadn't managed to make her bulge from her being here next to me to every single meal, not moving until I had totally cleaned my plate.

We talked of this and that between me coughing. And then: "Zabuza? Can I ask you something?"

"Well, shoot away."

"Er, I know you're still assigned to keep an eye on Itachi, but, er... could you... if you get the time..."

"Hatake, spit it out. It doesn't sound like you to ramble."

And he was right. I passed - carefully, 'cause it still hurt - a hand on the exposed bit of my face, my right arm still having troubles with responding to my orders, before talking. "Keep an eye on Iruka."

Seeing the raised eyebrow of my mammoth-sized buddy, I felt obligated to add a bit: "I don't need your comments on top, okay? Just... keep an eye on him."

He stayed silent for a very brief moment, proving me he already had some ideas on what was going on between Iruka and me - or maybe that he was just good at digesting info, even if it was rather surprising ones. His next question achieved to convince me he had grasped the implications of what I was asking him : "And if he asks me where you are?"

My hand did its path again, careful to the still stuck to my face oxygen tubes. I kept my head lowered, my eye staring at my legs crossed on the too high bed. Clouds hadn't moved from the sky for a good week now, and snow was piling up in the downtown streets up to fifteen centimeters. The ambient light from outside was enough to justify the absence of artificial light.

"Don't tell him the truth. Tell him anything, I don't care, but don't tell him the truth. Hell, don't tell him anything if you prefer."

He nodded, and didn't add anything.

When he was about to step out of the room, he turned back toward me.

"Hatake?"

"M-m?"

"Something I should know in particular, that you'd rather I keep an eye on him?"

Who was 'him' in the sentence was evident. I was tempted to tell Zabuza about Iruka's headaches, about his manifestations of 'chakra detection', about the unhidden hostility from a good half of the school against him, about the overprotective attitude of his cousins and his friends, about the guy who had tried to kill him, about the hints and bits I was collecting. I shook my head rather slowly, for my neck to bear the move.

"No. I don't think so."

And with that, he was gone.

The kid's name had been Sasuke.

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Half of the HQ's population had had to have stepped through my room's doorstep at one time or an other - I didn't knew I was this popular. Even Kodia's girl had came to see me between two shifts - Kodia had grumbled about it the new day. I think the worst visit had been Naruto. Seeing me as white as the bed sheets and the bandages had really upset him, then he had gone back to his normal behavior - and I wasn't in any shape to bear with a battery on legs. I had talked with Rin too. It had hurt on both sides, we weren't 'back to normal', but it was good now.

Sensei had gone on a mad rant about me having done such an unthinkable, stupid, foolish and ridiculous stunt, before attempting to hug me to death. He had brought me back my mask. I have no ideas on how he managed to get it back, but it was now little more than a formless half-melted blob with broken straps and shattered visor. He didn't add anything about the fire, about the actual situation or the state of things in HQ's offices. I was out of it and he left with the order to think only about going back on my feet - it was one more indication, if I needed it, that I was on the sidelines till further news.

In this glorious and wonderful Sunday January the twelfth, eve of the 'back to school from Christmas' break' for yours truly, one week later than everyone, it was time for a quick inventory.

Anyway, I had had one more week under Tsunade's eyes. She had speeded up again the healing of the more serious burns - said serious burns were almost totally healed now - thanks to her magic jutsus, but the rest wasn't really following swift. My organism was still dealing with the aftermath of the aggression, and only time would help.

I was marred with sore bruises on all my right side, and I was still surprised I hadn't broken anything - even if my hip had come very very close from broken seeing the colors on it. I was walking at a snail's speed, or as a old man without his walker; and I had more or less the same amount of energy. But I was up on my feet, it was all that mattered to me.

It had been confirmed that my hair had burned - for some, till my head's skin, leaving first and second degree burns as a souvenir - and Tsunade had shaved down what had been left. I was looking like a fresh new recruit, or a stitched up rag-doll. I had only kept a pirate-like bandage around my eye - without any hair, the bandage and the hat were all I had to hide it.

Zabuza had gave me the latest news from school when Tsunade had finally left me alone with the meals' question - I hadn't gone very far this day, we had just sat at the mess around real hamburgers. Iruka had asked about me two days after the go back to school day, and Zabu-man had opted for the 'I don't know' option. I had a feeling he had noticed two or three little things about the dolphin, but he wasn't seeming ready to ask about it.

Rumor was going to get ballistic with me showing up back at school. I still hadn't find anything as an excuse - and I needed a believable one. I didn't knew what I was going to say to Iruka either.

The kid's name had been Sasuke. I didn't even knew if his funeral had already took place - medias had strangely forgot everything about Uchihas with the New Year. I had a new bit of stone to go say hello on the Uchiha's side of the old cemetery.

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