Cornerman - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

chapter 3

Kakashi Hatake was surveilling a person of interest.

Currently the subject of his mission, Sasuke Uchiha, was walking alongside the jinchuriki of the nine-tailed-fox. The two had exited a rather well-known ramen establishment not too long ago where the fiery little demon had challenged the young Uchiha to a fight. The boy was not interested and had refused, expressing his intention to return to the Uchiha compound for a rest.

Not willing to take no for an answer, the girl had decided to tail Sasuke while battering against his patience with a stream of non-stop chatter.

Kakashi thought back to the times when he too had been in a similar situation. His expression had been much like young Sasuke's was right now, of that he had no doubt.

Kakashi did not so much as sigh in remembrance - he had been trying to move beyond the past. There were other people who now depended on him and cared for him, so he did what he had to do to keep on living.

Sigh.

In the end, he couldn't restrain it. It was difficult to believe that they'd been gone for over a decade. He had gotten better at handling it, but it was still hard.

That was part of why he was here today. He would've liked to tell himself that he was just looking out for young Sasuke, but that wouldn't be the whole truth. Sasuke was an Uchiha, the same as his late best friend. Their clan had been exterminated almost to the last man. Kakashi felt that he needed to preserve one of the last blood relatives of his friend - that way there would still be a piece of him left in this world.

He hung his head. In the end, he was still holding onto the past.

He knew the Anbu would be keeping an eye on the boy. Despite having resigned from the organization, he had volunteered for this task. The hokage-sama had agreed to his request. He would infrequently deliver reports on the boy, things he believed wouldn't be too troublesome for them to know.

Kakashi didn't make a habit of checking on the boy all the times, but he made sure to supervise any dangerous training sessions from the shadows.

The boy's training methods were a bit strange. During one peculiar late-night training session, Sasuke had placed a genjutsu on himself. Kakashi had almost removed it on reflex, but stopped at the last moment. It was incredibly dangerous for an untrained rookie to be meddling with genjutsu.

The first thing holding him back from acting was that he had immediately checked Sasuke's vitals and had diagnosed them to be normal. The second thing, well… He didn't want the boy to know that the village was spying on him. Kakashi had no idea how he would react to their blatant lack of trust in him.

Sasuke seemed to be using the genjutsu to hypnotize himself into recalling something and then, using the sharingan, he restored that memory to perfect clarity. Could this be a technique for studying? No, that seemed too excessive. Sasuke didn't have any trouble with schoolwork anyway. Kakshi honestly didn't have a clue what Sasuke wanted to remember so badly.

Regardless, Danzo would certainly try to recruit Sasuke if he found out about something like this. There was nothing that pleased the man more than talent - young enough to be molded into whatever he wished. Kakashi would rather that didn’t happen to the youngest Uchiha.

He huffed underneath his mask. He'd been thinking about too many useless things lately. He flipped over to the next page of his book, not noticing how it was upside down.

For now, he continued to observe the two children as they walked through Konoha's streets.

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It was getting late in the afternoon when the two finally arrived at Uchiha mansion.

"Still here, Naruko?" Asked Sasuke, eying the copper-haired girl.

"Hmph, do you think I'm I coward like you? If I say I'm going to do something, then I do it! No exceptions." Naruko said this with some condescension in her tone, as if she was looking down at Sasuke for his lack of principles.

"Hmm… Well, come in then." He spoke, inviting her into the castle behind him.

Naruko, who had been anticipating that Sasuke would chase her away, was surprised for a moment. Then she grinned, displaying every single one of her large white teeth before speaking. "I see you finally came to your senses. In fact, you should thank me for wanting to hang out with a loner like you!"

The moment after the words left her mouth, she paused. Wasn't what she said right now really mean?

Her hand went to her mouth, almost biting her nails before she caught herself, stuffing both hands behind her back. "Sasuke, I didn't mean…" She started, scrambling to fix her mistake. She glanced at her feet, too embarrassed to look at his face.

Before she could finish, she was interrupted by Sasuke's voice, speaking from a bit further away. "Are you coming or not? My arm's getting stiff from holding this door open."

Naruko glanced at Sasuke to see he wasn't even looking at her, instead having made his way to the front door where he had kicked off his shoes.

She felt a feeling of relief rise up into her chest. With a subdued "Hm~.", She nodded her head and scuttled over to the open doorway.

A short walk later, they stood across from each other in the Uchiha courtyard; Naruko with her hands on her hips and Sasuke with his in his pockets.

"Oi, Sasuke! Get ready, 'cause I'm seriously gonna kick your but right now!" she stated, a finger pointed at him in challenge.

He didn't react, instead removing one hand from his pocket to scratch at his nose before sending it back to its usual residence.

It was getting late, and she wanted to be home before it got dark. "Grrrr…! I'm serious – I don't want you saying something like 'I wasn't ready' when you lose! So, are you ready or not?" she asked with impatience.

At that, Sasuke finally made eye contact with her and nodded his head.

Heh, she would knock his lights out before he could even move a muscle.

With a "Here I come, teme!" Naruko rushed towards him. She decided not to hit him in the face as an apology for her earlier outburst.

Sasuke didn't move from his position, but adjusted his stance to meet her attack.

She arrived in front of him, launching an attack at his face. She anticipated that Sasuke would raise his hands to block the attack, leaving him open for a knockout blow to the gut.

However, that didn't happen as Sasuke nimbly slipped under her blow, withdrawing one fist from his pocket and sending it at her face in return.

This guy really doesn't hold back, even against a girl, Naruko thought. She wasn't worried however, as she still had one free arm with which to block his attack.

However, right before Sasuke's fist impacted her forearm, he suddenly opened it and flicked a fine white powder at her face. She turned her head away, desperately trying to avoid getting any of it in her eyes, but didn't succeed.

It burns so badly!

With that ambush, the fight was over for Naruko. Before she knew it, she was flat on the ground, a kunai placed against her neck.

"I win." Declared Sasuke.

Naruko didn't know when, but she had started crying. Her tears formed dark trails down her chalked face. "You cheated! How could you do that? I even tried to fight fairly against you, but you did something like this?" Her eyes hurt and so did her heart. Why was Sasuke willing to pull a mean and dirty trick like that on her?

"Ow, ow, ow…" She repeated, trying to wipe the stinging stuff out of her eyes with shaking hands. It really hurt a lot!

Two hands firmly grabbed her wrists and pulled them away from her face. "Don't rub it in any further, you dummy." A cool, medicinal smelling fluid was poured into her eyes, making the burning feeling immediately subside. Sasuke proceeded to carefully wipe away any other residue powder while pouring more medicine on her face. Once it became clear she was no longer in pain, he washed it all off with water.

"Better?"

She nodded her head, still sniffing a little bit. Her eyes had stopped hurting, but her heart didn't. She stood up, wanting to go home. She felt betrayed and stupid. She would never have done something like that to him, not even in a fight.

Before she could exit the courtyard, a hand grabbed her wrist. "Don't overthink it. I just wanted to win."

She didn't want to hear his excuses. She shook off his grip and headed for the front door. She could hear light footsteps slowly following behind her.

Walking back to the front door in silence, it really struck her just how huge and… empty the place was. Naruko lived by herself too, but at least the clamoring of her neighbors made her feel like she wasn't completely alone.

That was not the case here.

All she could hear were creaking floorboards, the wind whistling through the empty corridors and the hushed sound of… something scuttling around in the ceiling. Even the footsteps behind her took on a strange tone - empty and hollow.

The hair on the back of Naruko's neck stood up, and she became afraid.

She couldn't make it out the front door fast enough, her little legs carrying her outside the border of the complex with a desperate urgency.

Once she was outside, she stopped.

Did she really want things to just end like this? Today had been the best day she'd had in a long time. Did she want to lose the chance at making a friend? Her head turned ever so slightly, allowing her to look over her shoulder at what was behind her.

What she saw made her feel as if her whole body had been dunked into an ice-cold bath.

Cast in twilight shadow stood the pale ghost of a boy, its dark hair falling downwards as if to obscure its body completely. It stared at her with wide empty eyes that wanted to swallow her whole.

However, Naruko wasn't afraid of the ghost – she was afraid for him.

Behind him was an enormous beast in the shape of a house. Its maw a poorly disguised doorway – the same one where the helpless little ghost now stood. A feeling struck Naruko. That, if she were to leave here today, that little ghost would be completely swallowed up by the insatiable beast, never to be seen again.

She took a deep breath before speaking. "Hey… Sasuke. I'm a little scared to walk home by myself. Do you think you could come with me? I know its late, so I was thinking… maybe you could sleep over? You can even take the bed, I really don't mind sleeping on the couch!" She wrung her damp, cold hands and turned to face him. However, she came no closer to the evil house.

Sasuke stood in silence. After a moment, his mouth curled into a small smile. "I can walk you home, but I won't sleep over." He turned to glance backwards over his shoulder at the beast's shadowy gullet.

Naruko's heart sunk to her stomach. She couldn't let him sleep in this place tonight! Definitely not! What was she supposed to do?

"Please, Sasuke? Just this once."

He considered for a moment, but then shook his head. "Don't worry, I'll walk with you."

That really wasn't what she wanted to hear.

She shivered where she stood, desperately trying to think of a way to get him to leave this place. Then she thought of a different method that might succeed. One she didn't like at all, not one bit. But she would do it, if she had to.

"Hey, Sasuke. Can I ask you a question?" she asked, her voice a little timid.

"Yeah."

"Can we be… friends?" She turned around to face his dark form, eyes wide open so as not to miss a single change in his expression.

Sasuke's mouth twitched a little at the sight of the deathly serious girl in front of him. "Yeah."

She glanced down at her hands, nervously twisting the two icy, sweaty appendages together. Then, nodding her head, she replied. "Okay. Then… let me sleep over at your house! It looks like it's going to rain tonight, and I'm really scared of thunder." She asked this with the same tone and expression as a patient asking a surgeon to amputate their diseased limb without anaesthetics.

Sasuke glanced at the sky, confirming that there did indeed seem to be some cloud accumulation. He then let out a small harrumph. "Sure, if you want."

Naruko started walking towards him with a bitter expression on her face, glancing over his shoulder at the house's front door swaying in the wind.

She really hoped that friendship was worth the sacrifice.

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Kakashi watched with boredom as the little Uzumaki was led through the mansion by Sasuke, clutching onto the hem of his shirt. He didn't miss how she jumped at the sight and sound of every shifting shadow and rattling window. The kid really had an overactive imagination.

Naturally, he approved of Sasuke's approach to their spar. The phrase 'fair fight' had no place in a ninja's vocabulary. It was normal that Naruko couldn't understand that, as young as she was, and having been involved in nothing more serious than a playground scuffle. It made him smile that the kid could have such carefree thoughts. It was proof that everything Konoha's ninja had suffered hadn't been for nothing

He was waiting for Sasuke to start his usual training regimen, but he wasn't sure if that was going to happen today. The boy likely declined Naruko's offer for a sleepover for that exact reason, wanting to practice away from prying eyes.

After the two ate a small meal of boiled eggs with a side of mixed veggies, he watched Sasuke fruitlessly try to get the terrified girl to fall asleep. He likely wanted to test something crazy, as was his nightly custom. Usually after he finished his experimentation, he would attempt to completely exhaust his chakra before falling asleep.

Kakashi remembered an idea that had been making the rounds, right before he had left the Anbu: the possibility that a child in their growth phase could increase their natural chakra reserves through exhaustion training.

Kakashi lifted his headband and scratched at the covered eye. He didn't plan to babysit the two kids the whole day, but it somehow turned out like that. Well, it didn't seem like anything would be happening, so he supposed it was alright for him to head on home.

Neither of the kids so much as noticed him where he sat on a chair in the corner of the room. Neither did they when he disappeared, not stirring a single mote of dust with his passing.