Wanted

Welcome Home

The walls were barren. His bed sheets were messed up, his kitchen empty, his house cold. Lifeless - as though no one cared for the home nor anyone inside of it. He had one spare set of clothes hanging in the closet, alongside many other empty hangers. The floors were dusty, undisturbed. The only anomaly of the dust was the body, laying spread-eagle, face down.

Kakashi felt his face squished against the floorboards, the smell of black mould filling his nose. His headband lay beside him, forgotten. His hair was matted against the mask on his face, making it extremely itchy - but he didn't even have the motivation to move his hand to scratch it. His heart felt like it was being ripped out of his chest. Normally, when your heart gets ripped out of your chest, you die.

Kakashi only wished that he would.

He lay there for hours more, until the sunlight fought its way through a crack in his curtains, illuminating every speck of dust floating through the air. It fell upon his eyes next, making his corneas burn.

If the sun is up that high, it must be almost eleven. he thought to himself. eleven... what was I supposed to do this morning?

He closed his eyes as he pondered what event he had missed this morning. There were no meetings, no missions. Nothing worth getting up for. It's not like he had to teach-

The Survival Excercise... it came to him.

Shit.

Kakashi stomped towards the training ground, wiping the dust off his mask. Every step felt like a thousand, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to his comforting patch of floor. A patch of floor, a piece of the world where it felt like nothing could go wrong.

"You're LATE!" Naruto shrieked as Kakashi walked into the training grounds.

"Heh, yeah. Sorr-" Kakashi dropped off, his heartbeat stopping in his chest.

It can't be.

"Nakano Miyu..." He growled. He barely recognized her – she had changed so much. She used to be the village beauty – her dark hair was long and silky, her eyes were bright and blue, her skin fair, unmarked. She was skinny, lithe. With a square chin, a button nose and perfect, dainty hands – designed for delicate tasks. Like a porcelain doll. That was over five years ago - when they were just eighteen.

Miyu was no longer a beauty. Not in a conventional way. She was muscled like a man, only an inch shorter than Kakashi himself. Her hair was lobbed at her chin, with an ugly scar like a lightning bolt giving her a bald streak. It was striking – the change. Her eyes weren't even blue anymore – they had been dulled to a grey, as though a veil had fallen over them.

"Hello, Kakashi." She replied, her voice gravelly like a smoker's.

"wHAT?" Sakura exclaimed. "You two KNOW each other? Why didn't you say anything Miyu-sensei!"

"Sensei?!" Kakashi exclaimed. "You three – you shouldn't even be around her. She is not your sensei."

"She was here at 5am when you weren't," Sasuke grumbled.

"She's been teaching us while we waited for you!" Naruto pointed indignantly at Kakashi "Slowpoke!"

"We were working on a new Jutsu when you showed up." Sasuke continued.

"Were you now?" Kakashi's eye narrowed, the onyx iris glinting in anger. "And which jutsu was that?"

"Just the most useful one I've ever heard of!" Sakura exclaimed. "It's a diversion jutsu – you make clones of yourself that are strong enough to stay in the world with physical wounds so that you can pretend that they're dead. But, because they aren't actually moving or doing anything, it takes up almost no chakra! Isn't that brilliant!"