The Case-Book of Kakashi Hatake

A Study in Silence {Part 1}

At the age of twenty-six, I gained my medical certification and enlisted as an assistant army doctor in the Fifth Konoha Fusiliers. Shortly afterward, the Third Great War started, and I left to join my company near the border of Fire and Grass only to find out that my unit was already deep into Land of Earth. Since several other members of my corps, all jounin themselves, needed to regroup with the main force as well, we worked together to succeed in reaching the small camp on the border of Earth safely. Once there, I took up my new duties immediately.

While the war brought honor onto many, it brought me nothing but despair. I was removed from my corps half way through and assigned to an ANBU black-ops squad as their medic, and I was with them during a deadly ambush orchestrated by Cloud forces. I was caught near the blast of an exploding tag and suffered a severe concussion. I would have died if my team captain hadn't hauled me over his shoulder as my squad made it's retreat back to a triage where I was able to begin to make my recovery. When I was finally able to see straight again, I soon found that I could not recognize anyone any more; faces held no value. My captain who had saved my life was unrecognizable, members of my old corps were no longer a familiar face, and when I looked in the mirror, someone else looked back. I was diagnosed with associative prosopagnosia, meaning that the part of my brain that was responsible for face recognition had been damaged beyond repair. The mental breakdown that ensued robbed me of my little remaining health, and I was sent back to the Land of Fire as the war was winding down and I was stable enough to be moved.

I had no family left in Konoha willing to take me in so I lived there with nothing to limit me but the meagre salary of my medical leave and the fact that I really wasn't healthy enough to do much. I stayed for some time at a hotel near the center of the bustling city, leading a lazy and meaningless life and spending more money than I had. Far too soon, I was forced to come to the conclusion that I needed to either completely change my lifestyle or move out to the countryside.

On the very day that I came to that conclusion, I came across Sakura Haruno at the Criterion Bar, and if it wasn't for the unusual color of her hair, I definitely wouldn't have recognized her. She had been a medical student a few years younger than I, and though we had never been particularly close before, I greeted her enthusiastically. Living like a hermit had deprived me of human contact for far too long so I was unbelievably happy to see her again, and she greeted me with equal joy. It was promptly decided that we would have to eat lunch together.

"What have you been doing with your time, Watanabe?" she asked with genuine curiosity as we worked our way through the twisting streets of Konoha. "You look like death spat you back out again."

With a dry laugh, I recounted the details of my stint in Earth and Grass. It took so long that we had nearly reached our destination before I was finished.

Sakura shook her head slowly, "Sweet Hokages, you've had a rough go of it. What are you going to do now?"

"Well," I let out a deep sigh, "I was going to start by looking for some reasonable place to live, but I have no idea where to even start."

"That's too funny." I looked at Sakura strangely until she continued, "It's just that you're the second person today who's told me that very thing."

My ears perked up immediately since it's world's easier to find a good place to live if you have a roommate to split the costs. "Who was the other person?"

"An old sensei of mine from before we trained together as medics. He was whining this morning about the cruelty of the world and such since he had found a good place to live that was just out of his budget but couldn't find anyone to go halves with him."

"Sign me up! If he needs a housemate so badly, I'd be more than happy to volunteer. You've just saved me the pain of house hunting!"

Sakura just sent me an unreadable look, "You don't know Kakashi Hatake yet."

I chuckled, "And what does that have to do with anything?"

"He's... not exactly what I'd look for in a constant companion. Hatake was once a premier member of the ANBU forces, but now, well, I don't actually know what he does now. Don't get me wrong, he's definitely brilliant, but he seems to have a double dose of the eccentricities that tend to come with extreme intelligence."

Eccentric genius? Well, that would probably do a good job of getting rid of the boredom that had recently gripped my life.

"I'd like to meet him."