Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ What He Wants ❯ Part 16 ( Chapter 16 )

Part 16

 

 

“I was determined to leave no stone unturned in my quest to make you mine,” Kakashi begins. “I scoured the Uchiha complex, went through storage rooms in every hidden village, searched abandoned temples in the wilderness, excavated city ruins—”

 

Iruka looks astonished. “Seriously? You're not speaking figuratively?”

 

“No.”

 

“Wouldn't that have taken years, though?”

 

“Who do you think you're talking to?” Kakashi asks, a little affronted.

 

Iruka scratches the back of his head. “Right. Sorry, go on.”

 

“Anyway, during a mission to Grass Country, I came across some information that led me to an old hideout of Orochimaru's.”

 

“Orochi…?”

 

“I don't think anyone had been there for years. After a couple of hours of searching, I found a hidden room that had quite a lot of research in it, old documents and scrolls of techniques he'd developed or experimented with. Most of it was uselessly cruel or destructive, but I did come across something very interesting.”

 

“Are you going to tell me,” Iruka growls, “that you used a technique on me that Orochimaru invented, that can't be reversed?”

 

“Yes. Do you want to know what it is?”

 

Iruka's mouth is hanging open in shock, so Kakashi continues.

 

“Orochimaru spent years developing his immortality technique, the one where the soul transfers from host to host, binding to a new physical body.”

 

“The technique he's planning to use on Sasuke,” Iruka mutters darkly.

 

“During his research and experiments to develop that technique, he hit upon several others, which—while no good for his original purpose—were nonetheless useful. One of them,” Kakashi says, inhaling deeply, “was a technique for binding a soul to another soul.”

 

Kakashi can hear frogs croaking outside in the silence.

 

“You bound my soul to yours,” Iruka states.

 

“Bound them together,” Kakashi corrects.

 

Iruka looks thoroughly disturbed.

 

“The technique was originally a failed attempt to transfer a soul into another body, but when Orochimaru figured out what had happened, he experimented with the technique quite a lot. Never on himself, of course. A lot of interesting things happened with the bond. For example, he would separate the bonded pair, keeping them across the continent from each other. The closer the subjects were before the bond was made, the more difficult it was for them to function the further apart they got geographically. If the relationship was more one-sided, the person who was less invested functioned better, but they all had some difficulty. Many showed symptoms of illness. Some people—siblings, lovers—ended up feeling excruciating pain when separated from each other after the bonding. Some—strangers, mostly, but there were also some acquaintances—didn't have much of a problem at all being separated, but when in close proximity they had a tendency to be inseparable, almost literally.”

 

“Siblings…?”

 

The look of alarm on Iruka's face tells him what the chuunin's thinking. “Orochimaru didn't say if he meant they were intimate. He didn't seem interested in the sexual aspects of that kind of bond. He was more interested in torturing them by using them against each other.”

 

Shuddering, Iruka asks, “This bond…did he ever try to undo it?”

 

“He did. He tried many different ways over a period of several years, and found there was only one way to dissolve the bond without destroying both souls in the process.”

 

“Death, I presume.”

 

Kakashi nods. “And the death of one of the pair almost inevitably caused the death of the other, unless they had been separated for a while. But even if they'd been kept apart for years, the death of one was still traumatic for the other. However, many still survived it and went on to be tortured by Orochimaru in other ways.” He paused. “I figured if you were far away from me, Sensei, you'd be able to live normally with Shiko. I didn't know you'd be affected the way you have been. Orochimaru didn't take many notes about the state of mind of his subjects, unless it was to comment on their pain and despair.”

 

Iruka is shaking his head incredulously. “How could you do something so incredibly careless and dangerous?”

 

Kakashi looks down at his hands. “At the time, it seemed like the perfect foundation to prepare you for the memory alteration. There was some question about whether your mind would reject the Mangekyou technique, or that your chakra might run interference o—”

 

“I'm not talking about me, you moron! I'm talking about you!” Iruka looks livid.

 

Kakashi blinks at him. “I don't follow.”

 

“I get that you wanted to bind me to you in a permanent way that couldn't be undone. It doesn't surprise me, after all this, that you'd be so selfish that you'd compromise my fucking soul for something like this. But, Kakashi-san…what you've done to me, you've done to yourself! I mean, `lots of missions on short rations', my ass! You really look like shit, Kakashi-san!”

 

“Ah, thanks.” Kakashi raises a brow. “Maa, well. To be honest, I didn't believe I had enough of a soul left for it to matter much what I did with it. I didn't really believe the soul had that much to do with the mind or the physical body, either, I guess. Or at least, any difficulty I had, I figured I could overcome pretty easily.”

 

“But you were wrong, weren't you?”

 

Kakashi smiles wryly. “I was wrong.”

 

“And now we've both suffered for it.”

 

Kakashi turns his head to look into Iruka's eyes. “I'm not sorry.”

 

Iruka leans his head forward a little, eyes wide. “Excuse me?” he says dangerously.

 

“Well, I'm sorry for the pain you've suffered, Sensei. All of it. But for myself…” He tilts his head back, looking at the ceiling. He can see Iruka in the shadows thrown up by the light, smiling, laughing. “I only really had a month with you, Iruka-sensei, and you weren't totally yourself for that time. But it was the happiest month of my life. No matter how it came about. If the price I have to pay is to languish without you for the rest of my life, it's still worth it, to me. So I can't regret what I've done.” He looks over at Iruka again. “After all, I'm a selfish son of a bitch.”

 

Looking positively mystified, Iruka asks, “Why did you refuse to tell any of this to anyone?”

 

“Are you kidding?” It's Kakashi's turn to be surprised. “This is a soul-altering technique developed by Orochimaru. It's about as forbidden as you can get, unless you're doing something like raising an army of undead sex slaves. Especially in this village, and certainly under the rule of this particular Hokage. You really think Tsunade-sama would ever allow me to operate freely again if she knew about this? She has her lenient side, but it doesn't stretch this far, Iruka-sensei.” He scratches the back of his neck, leaning back to lie on his elbow. “You can talk to her about it now, if you want. Like I said, I won't stop you.”

 

“You don't believe that would change anything for me, though, do you? You're certain there's no way to undo this bond.”

 

“Not unless you kill me.”

 

“Don't tempt me.”

 

That makes Kakashi want to say something flirty about temptation, and he clamps down on it with a sigh. He doesn't like censoring himself, but Iruka is near him, sitting on his bed, and he plans to make that last as long as possible.

 

“I can't believe you did this to us. What the hell are we supposed to do now, Kakashi-san?”

 

“You can stay in Konoha.” He slides his eyes back to the ceiling. “You can stay with me. I don't mean living together, necessarily. I mean, stay with me.”

 

Iruka is silent and still.

 

“I know it's a strange concept right now,” Kakashi admits, sitting up. “The circumstances are really fucked up. But think about it, would you? I want you near me.” He can't stand this conversation; it's time to re-direct. “I'm not trying to prey on you like a shark on a hapless dolphin anymore.”

 

That makes Iruka's eyes narrow, his brow furrow, just as Kakashi knew it would. “Dolphins kill sharks, you know.”

 

“In self-defense, sure.” He smiles to himself as he can almost see Iruka's feathers ruffling, though underneath that Iruka looks as glad for the subject change as he is.

 

“You think dolphins don't seek out kills?”

 

“Of course they do. They eat fish, don't they? Some people seem to believe those are alive.”

 

Iruka crosses his arms, gaze flinty. “Sometimes young dolphins wash ashore dead, with no external wounds, but when you cut them open their organs are all contused, ruptured, or practically exploded, like they've been hit with a sonic attack. Do you know what kills them?”

 

Kakashi wonders where Iruka's going with this. “Lightning?” he says, just to say something.

 

“Adult dolphins.”

 

It's Kakashi's turn to furrow his brow. “Why?”

 

“There doesn't seem to be a reason. It's not like what happens with other animals, like when the new alpha male kills the children of his rivals. No one's even sure if it's males or females who do the killing, or both. Often more than one dolphin attacks at a time. As far as anyone knows, they do it for fun. It even looks like playing, when they attack. I've seen it. The dolphin will ram the pup with its beak, using such spinning force that it hurls the pup out of the water, rotating until it splashes back down. But that's not even the weirdest thing.”

 

“What's the weirdest thing, Sensei?”

 

“It's not just young dolphins they do this to. They also do it to pilot porpoises. Of course, no one knows why they do that, either, but you want to know what the prevailing theory is?”

 

Iruka is obviously enjoying telling him this, though Kakashi thinks it's taking the analogy a bit far. He doesn't really care. It's just good to see Iruka feeling better. “Tell me.”

 

“Pilot porpoises are roughly the size and shape of young dolphins.”

 

Kakashi breaks into a smile; he can't help it. “Target practice?”

 

Iruka echoes his expression with a wicked grin that makes Kakashi's pulse race. “And you thought you were brutal and enigmatic.”

 

“I bow to the superior violence and mystique of your namesake, Sensei.”

 

“My point is that there's more to a dolphin than meets the eye, you know. There's more to it than being cute, chirping and jumping through hoops, giving rides—”

 

“Extending metaphors,” Kakashi interjects innocently.

 

Iruka glares. “I'm not as nice as people seem to think I am,” he clarifies. “Especially after the last few months.”

 

“If you had nothing beneath your smile besides another smile, Sensei, I wouldn't find you anywhere near as interesting,” Kakashi answers seriously.

 

“And though I may feel…compelled…to stay near you, I'm not inclined to be nice to you at all, Kakashi-san.”

 

Kakashi's heart swells. “If you stay near me, even if you're cruel, that's more than I ever expected.”

 

“It's more than you deserve.”

 

“Far more.”

 

Iruka drops his eyes from Kakashi's, looking troubled. He scrubs at his forehead with his fingertips, slowly at first, and then faster and hard enough to look like he's trying to dig his fingers into his brain. A growl builds in his throat.

 

“Iruka?” Kakashi scoots a little closer, reaching for Iruka's hands to pull them away from his head.

 

The growl erupts into a howl of rage, and Iruka throws himself off the bed and slams his fist through the wall in front of him. Kakashi hears one of the studs break.

 

Iruka's shoulders heave with exertion and emotion. Kakashi stands up slowly. “Did you hurt your hand?” he asks.

 

The heaving in Iruka's shoulders rapidly relaxes, but Iruka doesn't respond or turn away from the wall.

 

“Let me see it.” Kakashi steps forward and reaches out a hand to take Iruka's arm.

 

He senses the strike coming, but doesn't dodge, and then he's looking at the tip of a kunai emerging from the back of his hand. He blinks up at Iruka, who is regarding him with an icy calm fury he recognizes instantly, though he's never seen it in anyone who isn't an ANBU veteran.

 

“No,” Iruka says, his voice deceptively casual. “No, this isn't going to go how you want.” His hands shoot up and around Kakashi's throat. “You don't get to win, Kakashi.” The hands tighten fiercely.

 

Kakashi realizes that he's looking at the influence of his own soul in Iruka. Some of the changes he's noticed in himself recently start to make more sense. He smiles, and doesn't fight.

 

Iruka smiles back at him, squeezing harder, thumbs pressing in sharply. “I'll wipe that smirk off your face if it's the last thing I do, you fucker.”

 

Kakashi gags. His eyes bulge and his vision starts to blacken. His body is trying to tense, to fight, but he forces it to stay relaxed.

 

The smile fades from Iruka's face. The coldness drains from his eyes, and they fill with misery. He lets Kakashi go and turns away from him.

 

Kakashi collapses to his knees, coughing and gagging.

 

“Do you want to die, Kakashi?”

 

He knows he can't speak yet, so he doesn't try. Still gasping in as much air as he can, he yanks out the kunai that is still embedded in his hand and tosses it behind him.

 

“What the hell am I supposed to do,” Iruka murmurs. “What the hell should I do? How can I…” He trails off, shaking his head.

 

Kakashi strips off his shirt and wraps it around his wounded hand. It makes a bulky bandage, but he doesn't want to leave the room to wrap it properly right now. He stands up, swaying a little, and touches Iruka's shoulder.

 

Iruka turns around, eyes bright with anguish.

 

`You don't have to do anything,' Kakashi carefully mouths. He wishes he could use hand signs, but that would be hard to do with one hand bleeding all over the place. `Just stay here in Konoha.'

 

“You said that people with this bond who stay in close proximity become inseparable. How can I possibly allow that? How could I retain any sort of self-respect?”

 

`It's not a normal situation. You can't judge yourself using your normal standards.'

 

Iruka scowls. “That's easy for you to say. Do you even have a compass to judge yourself by?”

 

Kakashi smiles broadly. `Not usually. I can use you, though.'

 

The scowl is replaced by bewilderment. “Why would you?”

 

Kakashi forces his abused voice box to vibrate. “I love you, Iruka,” he whispers in a voice that sounds like a wet sheet being dragged over gravel.

 

Iruka's eyes go wide. “Liar.”

 

Kakashi shakes his head, and continues mouthing, `You know I'm not. I've never said that to you before, either.'

 

“I don't love you, Kakashi-san. This weird obsession, this bond, none of this means love. I don't even know you.”

 

“I know you, Sensei,” Kakashi rasps. “And you knew me before, and loved me then. If it happened once, it can happen again.” He coughs, tasting a little blood in the back of his throat.

 

Iruka looks lost for a moment, and then shakes his head. “I'm going to leave now. I need to think, and you need to go to the hospital.” Guilt flashes over the chuunin's face as he regards Kakashi's shirt-wrapped hand, and the bruises no doubt forming on his throat. He opens his mouth and Kakashi covers it with his fingers.

 

`No apologies,' he mouths.

 

Iruka wraps his fingers around Kakashi's hand and pulls it away from his lips, but doesn't let go of it. He rubs his thumb along Kakashi's palm, contemplating the hand like it's a fascinating new species of butterfly. Kakashi tugs a little to get Iruka to look up at him.

 

When the sensei's eyes are on his face, he grins and silently teases, `I'm getting mixed signals, here, Iruka-sensei.'

 

Iruka drops his hand, eyes flashing. Kakashi expects that Iruka will get a little flustered or angry and storm away, but the chuunin surprises him. “I'll give you mixed signals,” he growls, grabs Kakashi's face and kisses him aggressively. It's more like an attack than affection, and ends with Iruka sucking Kakashi's bottom lip into his mouth and biting almost all the way through it.

 

Shoving Kakashi away, Iruka swipes at the blood on his lips. “Analyze those signals, asshole,” he snaps. “And go to the fucking hospital.”

 

Kakashi watches the chuunin stomp out of the apartment. He stands still for a while, blood dripping down his chin and onto the chilly wooden floor, his hand beginning to soak through his shirt, his abused throat tasting of copper.

 

Slowly, his lips stretch into a smile that feels like it might extend past his ears. He's never felt so exultant. He laughs out loud, and even though it hurts and sounds like he's sandblasting concrete, he can't stop.

 

This is going to work out. This is actually going to work out.

 

“Anything for you, Sensei,” Kakashi wheezes, still chuckling as he frees his injured hand and begins the seals for teleportation to the hospital. “Anything at all.”