A Hole in One's Heart [Kakashi Hatake]

Chapter 5: More Questions than Answers

Yay! Next part :) And a little bit of fluff...  Enjoy!

----------------Kakashi's POV----------------

     I was trying to hide it, but Ana's story terrified me. I have faced countless ninja and over one hundred S-ranked missions, but nothing has freaked me out as much as her story. She came from some world that watched the life of one of my students, and my life, as entertainment. I am a very private person, and this major invasion of my privacy made me deeply uncomfortable. Ana was a hard person to hold a conversation with. I did not know her, but she obviously felt like she knew me pretty well due to the amount of my life that she had watched while in her world. For entertainment. Just. Creepy. Despite my growing concerns for my personal life and privacy, I really felt for her. I have never been an empathetic person since the death of my father, but I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to be pulled from your relatively safe and happy world into this dangerous dog-eat-dog world of ninjas and death.

     After sleeping in the extremely uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room, my back was very stiff so I calmly moved to the cushy recliner in the corner of the room. I was lucky, this was one of the few rooms in the hospital with a nice chair in it. Pulling out my book, I began to stare at the first few words on the page, reading nothing. My mind was so jumbled that I knew that I needed to sort out my thoughts. 'First of all, how in the world does an alternate universe know, with great detail, the events of my world (and my life)? How did Ana even get transported here? Was it a space-time jutsu or some sort of reverse summoning? Definitely a space-time jutsu. She doesn't have any contracts with summoning animals and the caster was there personally to transport her to this world. Then who was this mystery person? Clearly they made the trip between worlds twice: once to get there and then once more to come back after abducting Ana. They must be a powerful ninja to survive the trip twice. And why Ana? Clearly there must be lots of fans of the show in her world so was she just randomly chosen because of her above average intelligence or is there some other reason? And how did that jutsu formula mange to remove all of her memories of this world that have not yet occurred? Is that a result of the jutsu itself or a side effect of transferring timelines? And, what did she mean by there being more to Itachi? I always found it hard to believe that he killed his clan, but the evidence was there and I was on the scene after the tragedy. I know that it was him. Also, there's her knowing about Orochimaru's designs on the Hokage's life. They must be attempted to some extent if it was included in the show. Orochimaru... If anyone was capable of pulling off such a high level jutsu, it would be him. That does not bode well for Ana or the village if he pulled her into this world as his own personal window into the future.' I sighed, 'Wow, great job, Kakashi, you only managed to create more questions for yourself than you've answered.' My eye drifted subtly over to Ana. Her eyes were closed and her hair was splayed out behind her head like a fan. She intrigued me, I had never been that flustered before in my life. People had given me a hard time for my choice in literature before, but she was the first person to actually make me uncomfortable about it. This strange woman from a foreign place, who may know more about my personal life than anyone in this world, had just appeared in front of me and made me start to question my life decisions. Intriguing. Ana's breathing began to become more ragged and I could see her forcing her face into a mask of calm. I knew that look. I had done that many times before myself, and I knew that she was remembering her parents.

     "Kakashi," Her voice caused my head to snap up from my book, "I was wondering if you could train me to become a ninja." Those were not the words that I had expected to come out from her mouth.

     "Um... May I ask you why?" I scratched the back of my neck as I put my book down on the table beside me.

     "Well, you see, in my world there were ninjas in Japan (that one country I mentioned before) a long time ago, and, well, I always wanted to be one. But, they were a thing of the past; no one was a ninja anymore, and it took me a while to realize that it just wasn't going to happen." She grinned sheepishly. "But, here in this world there are ninja, and I, uh, was wondering I could become one."

     I realized that I was staring and quickly blinked and looked down before it became awkward. 'She grew up in a world with no ninja? My entire life has revolved around being a ninja. Now I think that I see why she watched that creepy show so much if ninjas were that interesting to her.' I paused carefully considering my next words, "I don't see why not, but you will have to get the Hokage's approval. And, it will be extra difficult as most begin their shinobi training at a very young age, and you are..."

     "Twenty-three." She whispered.

     I nodded, "It is practically unheard of to have a ninja start at such a late age, but you don't seem like you're out of shape. What sort of physical exercises do you have in your world?"

     "Well, I run about thirty to forty miles a week, I love to run." 'That is quite impressive, there aren't many ninjas other than Guy who could or would do that without the aid of chakra.' "And I bike a lot, and I ski almost every day that I can in the winter." When she mentioned skiing her face light up with joy.

    "Uh, what's ski-ying?"

    "What?! You guys don't ski in this world?" She practically screamed this in my ear, 'I am going to take a week to recover after the beating my ears have taken today.' She then went into a long winded description about how they put on these uncomfortable stiff boots, attach them to slippery pieces of wood, and then go to the top of the steepest snow covered slope of a mountain just to go down. It sound both suicidal and strangely fun. She was still ranting, "I took this class on making skis once, so I could make them, not well, but I could, but the boots are going to be a little trickier. Do you guys have plastic in the world?" I opened my mouth to answer, but I didn't have time to interject before she continued. "And then I will need snow gear too, and I'll have to find a slope to actually ski down. Do you have any mountains nearby that get a lot snow?" Ana continued like this for another ten minutes, at least. Clearly, skiing was an important part of her life similar to the way the being a ninja was a part of my life. But, I tuned her out. I simply could not take another word about waxes for different temperatures and boot stiffnesses. It was confusing as could be, and I was getting a massive headache.

    "Uh, Ana," I interjected hoping to make the constant flow of information stop. "I understand that you really enjoy this 'skiing' thing, but you really should get some rest. The Hokage will be here with the intel division in the morning, and you will want to be well rested when they arrive."

     "I don't think that I can sleep right now," she whispered, even I could barely hear it. "Every time I close my eyes, I-I... I see them dead. I have been talking about skiing to try and keep my mind off it, but my dad taught me to ski. It was what we did as a family." My heart stopped, it was the same thing for me as ninja, it was the main thing that my father had taught me before he passed away. And no matter how many years had passed, I could never stop remembering him every time I did a ninjutsu that he had taught me or a taijutsu move that he had helped me perfect.

     "Ana," I said slowly, "would it help you sleep if I moved my chair over to beside your bed?" I had no idea what compelled me to be so empathetic, but I didn't want to watch her lay there unsleeping. She really would need her strength tomorrow, or at least, that's what I told myself. Standing up, I gently moved the large chair next to her bed as she settled down under the cold, hospital sheets.

     "Thank you," she said quietly, "I know that you don't usually like to deal with emotions." I had to stop myself from gasping aloud. She was so right. "I know that I have been pretty emotional today, but I'm actually the same way. Thank you so much for trying for me. I knew that I picked the right character to be my favorite." I was glad for the second time today for my mask as a deep blush rushed to my cheeks. I gently placed my hand on her head and moved her hair out of her face. Then I sighed, leaned back into my chair, and fell asleep as well.  

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And that's Chapter 5! Let me know what you think so far, constructive criticism is always welcome. Like I said before, this is my first time ever writing anything so I really want to know what you think and how I can improve for the future :)

Edited 4/13/2016