Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Chronicles of Kakashi & the Kunoichi from Thunder Country ❯ The Kunoichi from Thunder Country ( Chapter 21 )

The Kunoichi from Thunder Country

 

Now that she was capable of utilizing all of her chakra, Rikako could summon a bird large enough to carry her weight. She returned to Konoha flying on a giant brown eagle, wings with white tipped feathers. As the bird flew through the clouds to hide their approach, the cold air whipped about her small frame, but she hardly noticed the icy temperature. She was being fueled with a purpose.

 

'I can do this, I can defeat him,' she told herself and itemized her advantages and went over her plan.

 

1. Gai-sensei said I am as fast as Kakashi in his prime.

 

2. Kakashi will not want to hurt me so he won't be fighting at 100 percent.

 

3. I can do some double jutsu, which gives me an advantage.

 

4. He won't know my chakra has doubled.

 

5. I will take him by surprise.

 

6. I will fight him in an enclosed environment so he has less room to maneuver or escape.

 

7. I must hit him fast and hard so he won't have time to expose his sharingan.

 

8. I should attack at his blind spot on his left side.

 

9. If he does use his sharingan, I'll fight him in darkness to even the playing field.

 

10. I can threaten to destroy his beloved smut books!

 

 

But when he opened the door, her resolve wavered and her heart softened for a second. 'How handsome he is...how strong and caring…how genuinely pleased he is to see me...' She could sense his warm feelings and she could not look him in the eye, afraid that the tenderness she would see there would distract her from her plan. Again she suppressed the guilt that tried to surface and she proceeded with her plan of attack.

 

-…-…-…-…-

 

'How strange it feels to enter someone else's memories, like watching a fast action movie, a defective tape, which skips and blurs. Where to start? The most important ones first. The ones on the surface.'

 

She was seeing events through his eyes and it was difficult to gauge the time of the events. It was only by the feel of the memory and the colors of the aura tingeing the scene could she determine Kakashi's approximate age.

 

The first: a distant memory in light brown sepia tones of a child no older than six, feeling exhilaration at his first kill.

 

Redder sepia tones, a child slightly older, standing over a bloody lifeless body with a dagger's handle protruding from its mutilated abdomen. Dishonor. Humiliation.

 

Faded natural tones, an older child weeping tears from mismatched eyes over another boy's crushed body. Remorse. Retribution.

 

Gray overcast natural tones, an adolescent, not yet ready to shave, dressed all in black for a state funeral. Respect.

 

Soft natural tones, a young man holding a dying young woman whose last action was to smile at him with such devotion that she (Rikako) knew she could never feel. Regret.

 

A clear memory in bright colors of an almost pretty dark haired boy with cold sharingan eyes learning the chidori. Redemption.

 

Some of the memories were different from what she knew. She had learned of White Fang's suicide. She did not know his son bore witness. She knew of Obito's death and his sharingan gift. She did not know he died actually saving Kakashi.

 

Yondaime's funeral. He was both friend and sensei, a double loss. The young woman, who was she? A past lover? The girl on his team? A pang of unreasonable jealously struck her. The boy, his first disciple, now missing.

 

Loss after loss, three decades worth. A tide of pain previously dammed, now trickled through.

 

But none of it was what she was looking for. The event was before his disciple left, and after Yondaime. She continued to search, fast forwarding and rewinding at will. There, there it was. She could tell because the landscape around her was mountainous. Overcast natural tones. She was no longer in Konoha but in Hidden Cloud Village.

 

A calm determination, the goal to complete the mission, to rescue the Leaf agent was foremost in his mind. A cool confidence as he entered the complex. No fear at all. His senses were heightened and he was prepared for anything. A bright flash from an attack. He appeared behind the Cloud shinobi. This one was her father. She recognized him from her grandfather's memories. A tall rugged handsome man with dark features. A quick slash of the kunai ended his life in arterial spurts. No guilt, no qualms, no hesitation. He redirected his attention to the shadow that appeared by the stairs.

 

Shock, complete utter surprise, panic as he realized what he had done. Two lives in one shot of his chidori. The dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman looked at him intensely, imploring him for her unborn child's sake. Horrified at the consequences, the young jounin desperately tried to grant the dead woman's wishes.

 

He had saved her; she would not be here stripping his mind if he had not. An act of remorse and humanity, not a harvesting mission. Rikako was satisfied now and slowly started to withdraw from his mind.

 

But not quite. 'While I'm here I mind as well snoop around,' she thought a bit guiltily, but as usual that never stopped her before. A time skip, fast forward to present events.

 

A sad longing, a profound need, a hopeless love, frantically trying to hang on.

 

A desperate plea, 'Don't leave me.'

 

Thoughts from three decades worth of painful losses. Thoughts to which pride would never give voice.

 

-...-...-...-...-

 

Kakashi woke with a pounding headache worse than the time he had his sharingan installed. He found himself lying on the floor with a blanket over his body and a pillow under his head. His clothes were still wet. He heard the rhythmic sound of sweeping and the clunking of debris. He stood up and gingerly felt the bandages around his neck and arms. 'Damn that hurts,' he thought, 'but I'm alive, she didn't kill me after all. But what did she do to me?'

 

Rikako was sweeping the remaining debris from their fight into a dustpan.

 

"You're up," she said nonchalantly.

 

"How long have you been able to..." He thought, 'mind rape.'

 

"Read minds? Ever since I can remember. At first I thought I was going mad. All these voices in my head. I was about 5 when I learned to control it. Later I found if I made contact with someone using chakra, I could scan his memories. To be most effective, the person has to be conscious yet immobile. I never really used that power to the full extent until... But I had to know the truth, the entire truth. I had to know how my parents died,” she explained without remorse.

 

"Umm, you could have just asked," he pointed out.

 

"Would you have been able to tell me all I needed to know?"

 

He shrugged and the pain made him wince.

 

"I'm sorry I had to hurt you, but I couldn't just say 'Excuse me, let me scan your mind for your most private memories.' But I tried not to be too invasive and concentrated on just what I needed to know,” she lied. “Anyway, I'm just about done here. I'm sorry about the mess. I hope none of it was irreplaceable." She was trying hard to act casual, but Kakashi caught the quiver in her voice.

 

He didn't care about any of his material possessions (other than his favorite books); all he wanted was for her to forgive him for killing her parents. But that would be impossible, wouldn't it? Yet she didn't kill him.

 

He wasn't sure how he felt about what she did to him. He knew he should be furious with her. Invading his mind should have been an unforgivable offense. But was it anymore unforgivable than what he did? And he couldn't help but admire her determination, her planning, her poise. He had missed her desperately these past few weeks. The night they spent together still lingered in his mind and he still hadn't changed the bedsheets just so her scent would remain. 'She would be quite horrified at that. Will have to change them immediately,' he noted to himself.

 

Was it so bad to have her know his secrets? He would not have to speak of those events, which made him the man he was; yet she would know; she would truly know him. And if she could love him despite his failings, or because of them…

 

He approached her. "The only thing irreplaceable to me is you," he replied softly; his decision made, but only after he checked to see none of his books was destroyed.

 

"You can still say that after what I've done?" She turned away from him as she started to tear up from his tender words, but also to laugh at the same time. 'He's still using lines from those books!'

 

He moved closer to her, close enough to catch her scent without having to concentrate his chakra. He hesitated before saying, “I don't expect you to forgive me for killing your parents.”

 

She shrugged as if that were of little importance. “There's nothing to forgive. It was a mission, at a time of war, and you saved me. I'm grateful for that,” she replied matter-of-factly.

 

'For her to forgive me so easily…' he thought warmly. He wanted to tell her again that he loved her, to reassure her that his feelings hadn't changed despite her questionable actions, to return to the point before he told her the truth. But he knew it was too soon and given her rather contrary nature, could have the opposite effect. Instead, he ventured to whisper in her ear, “Then you still want me, don't you?” (a confident comment rather than a question) while snaking his arms around her thin waist.

 

She blushed and felt her skin prickling and her heart pounding madly at his proximity and audacity. Finally she turned to him, her eyes level with his chest, unable to meet his gaze. “I don't know,” she replied just as softly, as if to herself.

 

Her target, her adversary, her lover, held her tightly. "Well, either I have to kill you, or you'll have to kill me, or we'll have to be together, always. I can't have you running around with my memories and secrets in your head," he said almost seriously.

 

'Why do I want this man in my life?' she asked herself. 'He uses his past as an excuse for his current behavior. He's always late. He reads those indecent books. He's such an idiot sometimes. But he's a good person. That's what's most important isn't it? And I think he needs me. Shinobi are just tools to protect the village. To be needed as an individual is something different, unique. Being needed is more important than being loved. It serves a function. And I do like him, a lot, I think. And I have to admit he's quite handsome…a good cook…has such interesting hair and… that hypnotic red eye…'

 

"I…I suppose the last option is...is the most preferable..." she replied hesitantly. But she was tentative. Were his feelings genuine or were they a result of her suggestion? But in the end it didn't matter, did it? What was important was how she felt now, at this precise moment in time.

 

All her life she sought the truth behind her birth, her adoption, her powers. After a lifetime of plotting and planning, she now knew the full truth - not just her adopted parents' version, or her grandfather's version, or Kakashi's version. But her future was unclear. What would the Hokage do with her? Would she be allowed to roam freely with such powers? Would they seal them if they could?

 

This man holding her, who had aggravated and enraged her in the past, his destiny had been intertwined with hers since the beginning. She lived because of him. Her parents were dead because of him. But she had a life in Konoha because of him. In Thunder Country she would not have had such freedom. If her real parents knew, would they have chosen to let her live a life of freedom? Would they have sacrificed themselves for her? She wanted to believe that her parents would choose her happiness over their vengeance. She had to believe it; her future depended on it.

 

So how did she feel now, with him holding her so close she could feel the confident beating of his heart and the dampness of his clothes? She felt warm and loved, safe and at peace, and...

 

…annoyingly wet!

 

-…-…-…-

 

END OF BOOK I

 

-…-…-…-

 

Author's Notes:

I do not address whether or not Kakashi's feelings are real here, but I will in a future story.

This is the first of seven planned stories. I have six of them in various stages of writing. I'm working on rewriting the second but unfortunately do not have much free time.