Impossible to Forget

Chapter 34: Life-sucker of Doom

"I've been such a coward; I should have told you years ago. I never should have pushed you out of my life after my father died. I'm so sorry."

Unwanted tears streamed down my cheeks to fill my mouth with the taste of salt. The moisture left on my face froze into hard lines.

How had I never noticed before? Every time he walked me to the Academy, even after he had graduated before me. Every time he barged into my office unannounced just to ask how my day was going. Every time he fretted over whether I had eaten enough or gotten enough sleep or overworked myself. Every time he comforted me: over my hip, my inability to have children, my dad's passing, Kanaye's threats, the realization that my mother was still alive and wanted me dead. Every time he assured me that he had complete faith in my abilities and that I am nothing like my mother.

This was just as bad as what I did to Toukuro. I reveled in the love and affection that he showed me, and never returned, never even acknowledged, it. And as Kakashi laid down onto that stupid, fucking table with its restraints that came up and locked over him of their own accord, I realized that I never would get that chance.

Nori removed the sword from my neck and let go of my hair, and I slumped to the ground in a boneless heap. There was need for her continue threatening me. She had won.

My whole body shook from the force of my silent sobs.

I guess that I'm not as much of an emotional wasteland as I had thought. Curling up into a ball and sobbing for a year sounded like a good idea right then.

I forced myself to watch as Nori grabbed the mass of tubing, and I realized that it wasn't just for show. There was a strange suction-cup, electrode like thing at the end of each tube, and Kakashi closed his eyes and seemed already dead as Nori placed two on his head, five running down the center of his torso, and one directly over his heart. I'd be a horrible taijutsu master if I didn't know what she was doing. She had placed one over each of Kakashi's Eight Inner Gates. She was going to suck the chakra right out of him. No one can survive once they've had all of their chakra removed. Kakashi had died like that once already, in fact. But this time there was no repentant Nagato, no rinnegan to bring him back.

Nori's hands flashed through a few signs, and blue chakra that crackled like electricity started filling the tubing and running into the satellite dish part which was pointing right at the sleeping monster.

Eight Gates... Eight Gates, what did I know about the Inner Gates? I knew that if the eighth one was opened, the opener would die. Might Guy had survived opening the Eighth Gate, but Naruto had the power of the Sage of the Six Paths then to save him, and Guy was still confined to a wheelchair. But what Nori was doing wasn't opening the gates themselves, which actually requires breaking them open and then using the chakra held inside that would usually be busy limiting your body to prevent jutsus from tearing you apart. She was just sucking it out, pulling chakra through the closed gate. I just had to stop it before Kakashi's Eighth Gate was drained because if that happened, then he would surely die. But I was chained to the wall with chakra dampeners.

Kakashi's eyes snapped open and his back arched off the table, held down only by the metal bands around his wrists and ankles. His hands were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white, and I could only imagine the amount of pain that he was in with his chakra literally being ripped right out.

Nori smiled. "Kanaye did have his uses. Wonderful machine he built here, activates a change in chakra nature and a change in chakra form which is then channeled and compressed before it can be released all at once. No one could create such a jutsu on their own with hand signs, just wondrous." She looked back at me, "Be sure to thank him for me when you see him on the other side."