8 Chapter 6: How to deal with trauma
Being one of Konoha's most powerful and reliable shinobi, Hatake Kakashi was a man that always had a plan. You will now be presented with a short list of things that Hatake was prepared to deal with at any times.
1. A surprise attack from an enemy ninja who somehow managed to infiltrate into the village.
Being ordered by a superior to be part of a mission or to present a report.
2. An ally being impersonated by an enemy spy.
3. The owner of his favorite pornographic book store being impersonated by an enemy spy.
4. His toilet paper being replaced by explosive seals by said spies.
5. His toilet paper being replaced by explosive seals by allies who may have been pranked by him a few days ago.
6. Episodes of depression.
7. Pigeons carrying explosive seals.
8. Sparrows carrying explosive seals.
9. Enemy shinobi disguised as pigeons or sparrows carrying explosive seals.
10. More depression.
11. Gai challenging him to another competition.
12. Sasuke Uchiha helping some random cults to achieve the status of religion.
13. A mysterious ninja (he still doesn't have enough evidence to blame Sasuke Uchiha of this) giving the cultists some weird ideas about something called democracy and socialism.
14. Members of the intelligence division converting to the church of spaghetti monster after it reached the status of religion.
15. Traumas from your childhood resurfacing out of nowhere.
16. Threats from enemy ninjas.
17. Threats from allied ninjas.
18. Other things related to Gai that the author does not have the stomach to write.
Any shinobi worth his salt should always expect the unexpected, that is why he never went to the bathroom without having at least one kunai on hand. After so many years of fighting a war and fulfilling almost suicidal missions, he had lost count of the number of comrades who died after making the rookie mistake of stopping to urinate in the middle of a mission. Something that in Kakashi's opinion should be taught in the Academy, since it would decrease casualties by a long margin, is that, in the ninja world, urinating is the same as dying. An enemy would never wait for your urinary bladder to be empty before trying to kill you. No, they would take advantage of fact they caught you with your pants down and stab you in the back.
So, it was only logical that after noticing that his apartment's doorknob was turned two degrees to the left, he would do sensible thing and grab a kunai from his pouch before entering. Slowly, he opened the door and prepared himself for a fight to the death against an enemy ninja (although there was a chance of at least 98.5% that it was just the wind). Any self-respecting ninja should always be prepared for a fight to the death inside his house.
He felt ready for anything.
"Kakashi, am I a bad person?" Sasuke Uchiha asked still dressed in a hospital gown, drinking ketchup like juice.
He wasn't ready for this.
No one ever prepared Hatake Kakashi for an eight years old boy, who had become the last Uchiha (loyal to Konoha) alive thirty-six about hours ago, asking him a question about morals.
"Hi…Sasuke." He forced himself to greet the likely traumatized kid with the same smile he used to convince the Hogake that he didn't need therapy or talk about his father's suicide, Obito's death, that one time when he killed Rin with his own hands, or…actually, he maybe did need therapy. "Shouldn't you be at the hospital?"
The boy just shrugged in a way that made Kakashi understand why everyone hated when he did it.
"Ignoring your poor attempt to change the subject in order to avoid a topic that will make you feel both uncomfortable and guilty." Sasuke pointed out, avoiding answering the question about the hospital. "I decided that you, the guy with the most notable case of survivor's guilt in all Konoha, are best person to answer this question. I am aware that you are going to have to tell the Hokage about this whole conversation, but I have no problems with that."
Fucking child prodigies. Minato sure had the patience of a saint if he was able to deal with him for so many years.
"How did you find out so much about me?" The jonin asked.
"Gai." Sasuke answered confirming his worst fears.
¨Oh my sage, they met. I'm going to have to inform the Hokage about this. ¨
He sighed. "I guess I need a bit of context."
"My family was killed in front of my eyes and I was then trapped inside powerful genjutsu where that same scene repeated hundreds, if no thousands, of times, but I don't feel particularly sad. No, I am rather sad about the tragedy, but since I've never been close with any of the victims, I don't feel particularly hurt.
At that point Sasuke closed his mouth and stared into the void. Years of experience allowed Kakashi to determine that he was in the middle of a flashback so he didn't try to say anything. Every shinobi knew that only the worst kind of scum would interrupt a flashback.
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(Flashback)
Uchiha compound, thirty-six hours ago:
It was a beautiful and warm spring night, the moon danced among the stars with a brightness that could be confused with the one of the sun, the star that governed the day. The wind whistled a song that human ears could not hope to understand, but it was more still more than enough to fill the void left by the silent night.
Sasuke had spent his day playing with his friends and arguing about important subjects such as the dangers of fascism and how to identify its empty propaganda that sought nothing but to pass the evils committed in its tyranny as something necessary, honorable and natural (why the will of fire and child soldiers are pure shit); all form of discrimination and how the powerful have no trouble with allowing the horrors of something that is slavery in all but name (why the Hyuugas are pieces of shit and how Konoha helped them to create this fucking bird cage), etc.
When he finally returned to the Uchiha district at night, there were no guards in sight. But he was not discouraged by that and walked in, being very careful not to step on any of the multiple pools of blood along the way. He didn't want to stain his pants red.
"Hello Itachi, do you know if there is something left for dinner? I'm a little hungry." Sasuke casually greeted his brother.
A normal person would have been intimidated by Itachi's presence at this particular moment, but Sasuke didn't even twitch when he noticed that the sword in Itachi's hands was covered in blood. His older brother's eyes were glowing a fiery crimson red that looked strangely cold, creating an almost perfect oxymoron.
"My foolish little brother, do you know what this blood that means? This is the proof that I am the strongest. I challenged our family proved my strength, but you are too weak to be wort-"
"Actually, I'm fairly sure to be stronger than at least 65% of the Uchiha shinobi that were active."
That brought the genocidal speech of his older brother to a halt. Itachi closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.
"Not even our parents stood a chance against me, their bodies now lie on their own blood, waiting to be eaten by vultures." The solemnity packed in those words would have been enough to chill the blood of a veteran jonin .
"Ok? So…no dinner."
"SASUKE. I just revealed to you that I killed our parents in cold blood and your first reaction is THAT?" Itachi asked with a mixture of disbelief and scolding.
"I was not as close to them as I would have liked, I don't think they liked me that much."
The older brother completely forsook menacing look that he was trying to maintain and stared at Sasuke with the same worried eyes that had every time his little brother did or said something dangerous or stupid.
"They loved you a lot, it's just that they had no idea how to connect with a child as independent as you... not that it's your fault. Our family was never the best at expressing emotions, but that doesn't mean they didn't love you with all their hearts."
"Is that true?"
"They used their last breath to utter words of love addressed to me and you, especially you." Itachi's fierce red eyes contrasted with the gentleness of his previous words. "Of course, I sacrificed that love to obtain these eyes of hatred, the pinnacle of power. No one in this village of weaklings can stop me now."
Sasuke watched as the tomoes in his older brother's sharingan began to spin at an incredible speed. Little by the time that movement stopped; the tomoes couldn't be seen anywhere, they had been unified into three spiralling curves around Itachi's pupil.
/ Tsukuyomi /
The color of the dark nocturnal sky changed to the same crimson red that every experienced shinobi can easily recognize. All the serene silence of the night was replaced by cries of pain; the smell of rust, shit and images of Uchiha of all ages being brutally murdered by non-other than Itachi.
"This is the ultimate genjutsu. A world that I can freely control and... How can you move? You were supposed to be completely immobilized."
"Easy piece lemon squezee, your mango sharingan f-"
"Mangekyou sharingan." Itachi corrected.
"Your Mangekyou sharingan is apparently capable of locking its target inside an inescapable genjutsu, so I casted a genjutsu on myself beforehand. I am still within your illusion, but I am completely immune to its effects because I am already trapped in an illusion of my own."
"...that is not how genjutsu works."
"Meh, nobody reads fanfiction because it makes sense or its quality."
No one could blame Itachi for massaging his temples with his free hand at that moment.
"And can you tell me why you're yawning? I'm forcing you to watch the massacre I've just committed."
"The geese were much worse. " A shiver ran down Sasuke's spine as he remembered the bloody orgy. "I still have nightmares about it."
"This is not going as planned."
Every shinobi should be aware that no plan survives the first contact with the enemy. This phrase is by no means an excuse that people use to try to justify their ineptitude at planning, no sir.
"Oh, before I forget. " Sasuke stepped forward.
*SLAP*
Itachi did not plan to be slapped that his younger brother neither. Or maybe if he did, the character was supposed to be a genius, but the author doesn't know how smart people think.
"Good hit." Itachi muttered after recovering from the impact. "But you're going to need much more than that to kill me-"
"How many children? " Sasuke asked with something that he rarely used, seriousness.
Itachi closed his eyes for a moment. "Enough." He replied and said no more.
Silence filled the distance between them and it only broke when the youngest did something that caught the older youth off guard once again. Sasuke launched an attack against which even the most powerful shinobi would be defenseless, a hug.
"I am fully aware of why you did this. A boy soldier traumatized by a life that should never have been his; one who, despite his genius, never realized there were more than two alternatives; one kid that was manipulated by others who understood his love even better than he did. I will not forgive you because it is not my right to do so but your victims'. "
Itachi preferred it that way; forgiveness would have terrified him even more than the atrocity he had just committed.
"It's the sensible thing to do, at the end of the day what I did was abominable." His short young arms, which were still longer than those of his little brother, hugged Sasuke back. "As long as I live the higher ups will leave you alone. And since you are talented, in a few years the elders will fear moving against you due to the risk turning a powerful ally of the village into an enemy. Ideally, you will still be the one to assassinate me in the future and solidify your place as a hero."
Itachi felt something a tickle on his chest and realized that Sasuke was laughing as he broke up the hug.
"Nope. I'm not going to help you to write the world's largest and convoluted suicide note."
"Sasuke... "
"No. I'm not going to do it. By now you should know that love is a big thing and my heart small. I don't have that much room left for something like hate, but if you want to be punished so badly ... mmmh, let's see, I condemn you to live with your guilt until all my beautiful hair turns white. Yep, that sounds good. Make sure to treat any lung disease of yours, I don't want to get blood splattered on me when I go looking for your sorry ass in a couple of years."
For a few moments, Itachi thought that, if he didn't already have it, this pain and guilt he felt upon receiving words of love from someone who should hate him would have been enough to awake the Mangekyou sharingan.
Maybe there was an alternative…and If everything failed, he could still use Shinsui's eye to make sure that Sasuke became a hero by killing him.
"Sasuke, think fast. "
"What the-OH, MOTHERFU-"
The brothers made eye contact and Sasuke had a horrible nightmare in which tomatoes had disappeared from the face of the earth. That was almost as bad as the geese.
(Flashback)
---------------------------------------------------
Back at the apartment.:
"And I guess that's why I feel guilty. I should feel sadder but I'm not."
"Sasuke, other people cannot see your flashbacks."
"Oh, my apologies."
"Don't mention it, everyone makes that mistake at first." There were a lot of occasions when Minato got in troubles because Kakashi forgot to narrate a flashblack after a mission.
Channeling his inner Minato, the jonin put a hand on the boy's shoulder and smiled.
"You may be a potential sociopath, but just a few hours ago, we had to stop an Inuzuka and two Hyuugas from sneaking into a hospital because they were worry about their friend. No, I don't think you are a bad person, otherwise, I would not understand how you made friends like them."
"I guess Shisui will be happy to hear that....and angry at himself because he missed the whole massacre thing."
"Is he alive?" Asked a surprised silver haired shinobi.
"The geese found him drowning in a river after Itachi stole his eyes and tried to kill him. They are healing him right now; Geese are awesome medics."
"Aren't they supposed to be evil? "
"Totally evil, but they realized that if you know how to heal someone then you can torture him for way longer. "
Kakashi couldn't help but nod at such logic. He was too scared of those bird to rebut that argument.
"And please tell me you didn't report Hinata and Neji to the Hyuuga. I had to blackmail, bribe and threaten SO MANY members of that clan for those two to be treated with a modicum amount of human decency. I don't want look out for even more dirt on those assholes…actually, does the Hokage need some blackmail material? I have a lot to spare in exchange of him turning the blind eye to some of my bullshit. Take a free sample."
Kakashi shook his head in amusement when Sasuke threw a small notebook at him. After making sure that there weren't explosive seals inside the notebook, he read a random page and…he didn't need to know that Nara Shikaku and his wife were into S/M or that Inuzuka Tsume swung that way.
"I believe that the Sandaime will find this exchange satisfactory." With a bit luck, the bar would have enough alcohol to erase these memories. "And don't worry about your friends, the Hokage made sure their clans didn't find out about their little mischief. "
"Oh, and don't forget that you are also my friend. That way I can blame you for my literary taste." He said with a mischievous smile, making Kakashi chuckle.
If one were to ignore some of his craziness, he was a good boy.
"Let's go back to the hospital." The copy ninja said using his professional tone for a second. I'll bring you a book later, just don't tell the nurses... on second thought, don't tell anyone. "
It may had been a strange conversation, but it wasn't one that Kakashi regretted one bit. Helping someone younger had a certain charm, perhaps that was how Minato felt when dealing with him.
A small smile formed on his face, hidden by that mask that he never took off.
"By the way, why has toilet paper in the bathroom been replaced by explosive seals?"
Well, at least he was prepared for that.
