Kakashi did not so much walk into Wave as drift there on stubbornness.
The moment Zabuza and the masked hunter-nin disappeared into the mist, everything that had been running on instinct and muscle memory started sending in complaints. His legs were lead, his Sharingan eye a slow-burning throb under the hitai-ate. Each step along the muddy path hooked another weight onto his shoulders.
He kept moving anyway.
The kids were still wired, even if they didn't realize it. Naruto buzzed between bravado and delayed terror. Sasuke's jaw was clenched too tight, eyes narrowed, replaying mistakes. Sylvie walked with her hands clenched on her straps, chakra tucked in close, but every time she glanced at the treeline it spiked sharp before she crushed it back down.
Tazuna trudged ahead of them, hunched under more than just age and the smell of cheap alcohol.
By the time the outline of his house appeared through the fog—simple wood, salt-worn and sagging—Kakashi's chakra coils felt like dry, scraped channels. He was very aware of how much damage one more real fight would do.
Tsunade would have smacked him for overextending like this.
"Hey, old man, is that your place?" Naruto shouted, pointing like the house might sprint away if unobserved.
"Yes," Tazuna snapped, though the edge was dulled by exhaustion. "Welcome to the glamorous Land of Waves. Try not to trip over our poverty."
The front door slid open before they reached it.
A woman stood there with a dishcloth in her hands, hair tied back, eyes shadowed with the particular tiredness that comes from holding a household together with willpower and cheap rice. A small boy half-hid behind her leg, peering out with narrowed eyes.
"Tsunami," Tazuna said, voice softening. "I'm back."
She blinked. Took in the hitai-ate, the kids, the tired man in the mask. Her gaze lingered on the blood drying on Kakashi's vest and sleeves.
"…Welcome home, Father," she said. Then, to Kakashi, "Please, come in. You're hurt."
"Just a little chakra exhaustion," Kakashi said lightly.
The porch tilted under his feet.
The world hiccuped sideways.
He felt himself listing and thought, distantly, before everything went grey at the edges.
Naruto yelled his name. Someone grabbed his arm. The ground came up faster than he could correct for—
—then he hit a futon instead of the floor. At some point, someone had shepherded him down a hall and into a small room. His vest was off, his mask tugged down around his neck, the air thick with the smell of antiseptic and miso.
His whole body complained in chorus.
"Don't get up," a small voice said firmly.
He cracked open his good eye.
Sylvie sat cross-legged beside him, glasses askew, hair frizzed from humidity. There were bandages on her hands where she'd scraped them earlier. Her chakra brushed against his—a cautious, precise tap, like a kid poking a sleeping tiger.
"You should still be unconscious," she added. "Medically speaking."
"Mm," Kakashi said. "Medically speaking, I've heard worse."
Across the room, Tsunami frowned as she wrung out a cloth. "You shouldn't be moving at all," she said. "You used too much… chakra, was it? Whatever it is, you scared my father half to death."
"Sorry," Kakashi said. He meant it. Startling clients by collapsing was bad form.
Outside, he could hear Naruto and the small boy arguing about something—volume, shouting, the words "hero" and "stupid" already featuring heavily. Sasuke's footsteps paced somewhere nearby, measured and restless.
Kakashi exhaled slowly and let the ceiling stop tilting.
"Since we're talking about my terrible life choices," he said, turning his head just enough to look at the three genin hovering in the doorway now, "we should probably discuss yours too."
Naruto blinked. "What? We didn't almost drown in a water prison!"
"You also nearly got you and Tazuna killed," Kakashi said mildly. "Twice."
Naruto flinched. Sylvie's chakra spiked with quiet annoyance on his behalf.
Kakashi sighed.
"Sit," he said.
They did, grudgingly—Naruto at the foot of the futon, Sylvie and Sasuke against the wall, all three radiating varying degrees of tension and adolescent outrage.
"First," Kakashi said, "I owe you an explanation. About chakra, missions, and why this all went sideways."
He watched their faces as he talked.
He kept it simple; they'd had Academy lectures, but context mattered. How chakra was physical and spiritual energy braided together. How using too much didn't just make you tired; it burned channels, tore muscles, wrecked nerves.
"How close were you?" Sylvie asked quietly. "On the lake."
"Closer than I'd like to repeat," Kakashi admitted. "Sharingan isn't free. Copying that many jutsu in a body that isn't built for it…" He trailed off, letting the implication hang.
Naruto swallowed. "So you… could've died."
"Yes," Kakashi said. "Which is why you three need to understand what we're actually in now."
He shifted, ignoring the way his leg throbbed in protest.
"You were promised a C-rank escort," he said. "Bandits. Maybe one or two minor thugs. That situation with the Demon Brothers?" He raised an eyebrow. "Borderline B-rank. Zabuza Momochi, former elite from the Hidden Mist, working for a crime lord who owns half this country?" His tone flattened. "Solid A-rank."
Naruto's eyes went wide. Sylvie's fingers tightened on her knees. Even Sasuke's cool mask flickered.
"You mean…" Naruto started. "We're not supposed to be here?"
"By the book?" Kakashi said. "No. By reality?" He glanced toward the adjoining room, where Tsunami moved quietly between kitchen and table. "We're here. And if we leave, Wave stays under Gato's boot."
Silence stretched.
"Here's what that means," Kakashi went on. "I am on a time-limited recovery. Zabuza is too, wherever he is. When he comes back—and he will—you three need to be stronger than you were today. A lot stronger."
Naruto straightened. "We can do it! Just teach us some super strong jutsu!"
"Yeah," Kakashi said dryly. "I'll just give you all Chidori and see who loses an arm first."
Naruto deflated a little. Sylvie snorted.
Sasuke's eyes sharpened. "Then what?"
Kakashi pointed a finger at the window.
"Tree-walking," he said.
Naruto blinked. "…Tree-walking is a thing?"
"Walking," Kakashi said, "up trees. Without using your hands."
Naruto's jaw dropped. "That's awesome."
Sasuke's mouth twitched, just a little. Sylvie looked thoughtful, already mentally reverse-engineering the mechanics.
"It's an exercise in chakra control," Kakashi explained. "Channeling just enough to stick, not enough to blast yourself off the bark. You three start that tomorrow. I'll supervise as soon as I can stand without my legs arguing with me."
Naruto punched the air. "We're going to be so strong Zabuza won't know what hit him!"
"We'll see," Kakashi said. "But if you listen and train, you'll at least live long enough to find out."
He let his eye drift closed for a moment.
Outside, the ocean roared softly against rocks. Inside, the house hummed with a low, persistent fear. It lived in the way Tsunami's eyes darted to the window whenever a cart rattled past. In the tension in Tazuna's shoulders. In the small, hard knot that was the boy—Inari, Tazuna had called him—watching them all with the cynical focus of someone who'd seen too much.
Kakashi's own chakra was a frayed rope. But the three kids in front of him were burning bright. Too bright. If they weren't careful, this place would eat them.
"Rest tonight," he said. "We start climbing trees at dawn."
Naruto groaned dramatically. Sasuke rolled his eyes. Sylvie hid a smile.
It was a mess. An underpaid, mis-ranked, morally dubious mess.
Kakashi had been in worse.
The house creaked like it was tired of standing.
By evening, the adrenaline had leaked out of my veins, leaving behind dull aches and a weird floaty feeling. I'd cleaned the little gashes on my palms from grabbing Tazuna earlier, wrapped Naruto's freshly reopened hand wound (again), and done my best impression of a responsible kunoichi while my brain replayed the day in jittery fragments.
Zabuza's killing intent. The water prison. Kakashi's eye, red and spinning, drinking in jutsu like he was cheating on a test with the answer key tattooed on his face.
The feeling of Haku's chakra—soft and sharp all at once—as those senbon hit.
I stood in the narrow hallway outside Kakashi's room, a bowl of water in my hands and a crude diagnostic seal written on my wrist in smeared ink. The script was a little crooked. My fingers had been shaking when I drew it.
"You can do this," I muttered at myself. "Basic diagnostic, not brain surgery."
The door slid open with a small scrape.
Kakashi looked worse under lamplight. Without the flak vest and mask, you could see the way exhaustion hollowed his face, the way every movement was controlled and careful in that "if I relax, I'll fall over" kind of way.
He still managed to look mildly amused, because of course he did.
"Evening," he said. "Come to assassinate me while I'm weak?"
"In your dreams," I said, stepping in. "Tsunami asked me to check your leg. If you keel over in the kitchen, her floor doesn't deserve that."
He huffed a laugh and shifted to let me sit near his ankles.
The wound itself wasn't bad—more strain than obvious damage. But chakra exhaustion made everything harder to read. I dipped my fingers in the water, activated the little seal on my wrist, and pressed my hand lightly over the fabric at his calf.
Chakra, I'd learned, wasn't just one thing. It had flavors. Natures. Kakashi's was… complex. Thick, layered, like lines of ink that had been written over in different colors until they blended into something new.
Right now it felt dry and crackly, like parchment left in the sun.
I sent the tiniest thread of my own energy into the muscle and tendons, letting the seal pattern on my skin guide it into a spiral and back. The trick was not to push. Just… listen.
"Pain?" I asked.
"A little," he said. "Nothing compared to what you'll feel tomorrow when you fall off a tree for the twentieth time."
"Rude," I said. "You don't know I'll be bad at it."
"I've seen your stamina," he said. "I'll get extra bandages ready."
I made a face, but he wasn't wrong.
Under my palm, the tension in his leg mapped itself out—tight bands of muscle, little knots where chakra had overloaded and then burned out. Nothing torn. Just overused.
"Good news," I said. "You didn't permanently break yourself trying to show off in front of us."
"Mm. That is good news," he murmured. "Don't tell Guy. He'll be disappointed."
I snorted.
When I pulled my chakra back, my fingers tingled with pins and needles. The seal on my wrist faded, ink already smudged from sweat. My head throbbed a little—the price of poking around in someone else's pathways, even gently.
"You're picking this up fast," Kakashi said, watching me. "Medical diagnostics."
I shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. "It's useful," I said. "And someone has to be able to tell when Naruto's about to fall down for real."
"True," he said. "Just remember not to burn yourself out trying to patch everyone else."
I didn't answer that.
From the main room, Tsunami called that dinner was ready.
Kakashi waved me out with a flick of his fingers. "Go eat," he said. "I'll join you before Naruto tries to wrestle the rice pot."
"Too late," I said. "He's already made eye contact with it. It's doomed."
The dining area was small but clean. Tsunami had laid out bowls and chopsticks with careful, habitual precision. Tazuna sat at the far end, shoulders slumped, a cup of something suspiciously strong in his hand. Inari was already there too, chin propped on the table, eyes dull.
Naruto planted himself cross-legged next to Inari and immediately started shoveling rice into his mouth like someone was timing him. Sasuke sat more neatly, but he was just as focused. Chakra exhaustion made everybody hungry.
I slid into a gap on the other side of the table.
For a little while, there was only the sound of eating. It was… nice, actually. Warm. Simple. Tsunami moved quietly, refilling bowls, watching Naruto like she couldn't decide whether to scold him for talking with his mouth full or adopt him on the spot.
"You three," Tazuna said suddenly, voice rough. "You really fought that monster today, didn't you?"
Naruto swallowed, eyes flashing. "Yeah! We're gonna beat him next time, too. Believe it!"
Tazuna snorted. "You kids talk big."
"We backed it up," Sasuke said flatly.
"My father means," Tsunami cut in quickly, "thank you. For protecting him. For protecting us."
Her chakra was tired but steady. The fear coiled underneath didn't go away, but there was genuine gratitude mixed in.
Inari slammed his chopsticks down.
"Why are you thanking them?" he snapped. "They're going to die. Just like Kaiza did."
The air went sharp.
Tsunami went pale. "Inari—"
"It's true!" Inari shouted, eyes suddenly bright with angry tears. "Everyone says the same thing! 'We'll protect you, we'll fight Gato, we'll fix everything!' And then Gato kills them. Just like he did to Kaiza. And everybody goes back to being scared and pretending they didn't try."
His chakra felt like a fist, clenched so tight it was shaking. Fear, grief, anger—all jammed together with nowhere to go.
Naruto's chair scraped as he shot to his feet.
"You think that means we should just give up?" he yelled back. "Hide in here and cry all day?"
Inari glared up at him, small hands balled on the table.
"You don't understand anything!" he shouted. "You don't know what it's like to lose someone! You just show up and shout about being a hero like it's easy!"
Naruto flinched like he'd been hit.
For a heartbeat, the room froze—Tazuna halfway to standing, Tsunami's hand gripping her apron, Sasuke's chopsticks hovering over his bowl.
Naruto's chakra spiked, then surged, a hot flare of something I recognized too well: that bone-deep indignation when someone claimed the monopoly on pain. On being hurt.
"Stop acting like you're the only one who's had it hard!" he yelled.
His voice shook. His hands clenched at his sides.
Around him, the air buzzed. He was so angry the room felt bigger, somehow.
Inari's face twisted. He shoved his bowl away, the clatter loud in the silence, and bolted from the room.
"Inari!" Tsunami called.
He didn't stop.
The front door slammed.
Naruto stood there, breathing hard, eyes dark and wet but furious.
"…Naruto," Kakashi's voice said quietly from the doorway.
Naruto jerked around. Kakashi leaned against the frame, looking like he'd walked there on sheer attitude, but his gaze was sharp.
"That's enough," Kakashi said.
Naruto's shoulders hunched. "But he—"
"I heard," Kakashi said. "You're both hurting. Yelling won't fix that."
Naruto's jaw worked. For a second I thought he'd argue anyway. Then he dropped back onto his cushion, muttering something obscene into his rice.
The rest of dinner happened in a weird, lopsided quiet.
Tsunami apologized too many times. Tazuna drank in sullen silence. Sasuke pretended not to care, but his chakra was tight. Naruto grumbled every now and then under his breath, the edges of his anger fraying into something more tired.
I ate mechanically, thoughts spinning.
Inari's despair felt… familiar. The same flavor as Naruto's used to be, before he'd learned to turn it outward into noise and declarations. A heavy, grey hopelessness that curled in on itself, convinced that the worst thing was also the truest thing.
Back home—my first home—people like that just… disappeared into themselves. Systems failed them, adults looked away, and the world moved on.
Here, Gato was the system. The failure. The weight sitting on this whole country. Inari had proof that heroes died and nothing changed.
Naruto had proof that the world hated him and still wanted to change it anyway.
Both of them were right, in their own awful ways.
After the dishes were done—me helping Tsunami scrub stubborn rice off cheap ceramic while Naruto "helped" by sneak-eating leftovers—I slipped away.
The hallway to Inari's room was dim, the wood cool under my bare feet. I paused outside his door, hand hovering over the frame.
I could feel him on the other side. A tight, bitter knot of chakra, small and brittle. He wasn't crying loudly. The house was too practiced at hiding that kind of sound.
I dug into my pocket and pulled out a tiny square of paper.
The courage charm seal was… ugly. The lines wobbled. The little spiral in the center was lopsided. The kanji for "endure" looked like it had lost a fight with my brush.
But I'd made it between cleaning and dinner, ink smearing on my fingers, thoughts running circles.
It wasn't a real jutsu. Not yet. Just ink and intention.
Quietly, I slid the door open a crack.
Inari sat on his futon with his back to me, knees drawn up, face buried in his arms. The room smelled faintly of salt and wood smoke. There were a few toy soldiers lined up on a shelf, gathering dust.
I stepped inside as softly as I could.
He didn't look up.
There was a nail hammered into the wall near his bed, empty. Maybe something had hung there once. A charm. A picture.
I reached up and pressed the little seal to the wood. It stuck, just barely, the corner curling.
It looked ridiculous. Crooked and small.
"It's not magic," I said.
Inari's shoulders jerked. He twisted around, eyes wide, anger and embarrassment flashing across his face.
"What are you doing in here?" he snapped.
I held my hands up, backing toward the door.
"Relax," I said. "I'm not here to lecture you. Or yell. Naruto's got that covered."
Inari glared. "Then what do you want?"
His chakra prickled against my skin, all sharp defensiveness.
I nodded toward the charm.
"Just… leaving that," I said. "For when you need it."
He squinted at it, suspicious. "What is it?"
"A reminder," I said. "That being scared doesn't mean you're wrong for wanting things to change."
He scowled. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Most things worth doing don't, at first," I said. "Look. I get that… this all sucks. That Gato feels big and you feel small. That people have already tried and failed. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to hope. Or be angry. Or both."
His lip trembled, just once.
"That little paper isn't going to stop Gato," he muttered.
"No," I agreed. "It really isn't. It's badly painted, for one thing."
His eyes flicked back to me, confused.
"Then why—"
"Because sometimes," I said, "when everything feels awful, it helps to have something near you that says, 'hey, remember, you're still here.' Even if it's just a stupid scrap of paper."
I stepped back into the hall.
He didn't call me back. But he also didn't rip the charm down, which felt like a miracle on par with some of the higher-ranked jutsu.
"Goodnight, Inari," I said softly.
"…Night," he muttered.
Back in the little room I was sharing with Naruto—who was already snoring like he was trying to win an award—I lay on my futon and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow we'd start climbing trees until our legs gave out. Zabuza and Haku were out there somewhere, recovering, sharpening their own blades. Gato's men still prowled the roads.
I couldn't fix any of that with a smear of ink and a half-baked seal.
But maybe, in a village where hope had been stomped flat, a badly painted courage charm on a crooked nail was a start.
People mattered more than orders. Kakashi had said that.
Maybe that meant, sometimes, people mattered more than logic, too.