A/N: Something that should be clarified - this story will go on for quite a while longer. It's simply in a little transition phase now. When I said that I have no clue when this is going to end, I was telling the truth, but that end is a good way away. I anticipate possibly another ten chapters. I'm not making promises - I don't know how much space what I want to do will take up - but it'll be more or less that. Possibly drastically. I'm just ballparking here.

And the beginning of this chapter isn't confusing at all. Keep reading - it's very obvious what I'm doing, though I'm sorry that this story is being written so slowly that a reread of previous chapters is sometimes necessary to pick up on everything. This scene is a continuation of a scene from Chapter Eight, if you'd like to refresh your memory. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on where the characters are right now, too.

Enjoy!

Warning: The following fanfiction contains very extreme darkness such as pedophilia, prostitution, and complete psychological mindfuckery. It is rather explicit. Do not read if unwilling to endure the content. Please click the back button.

These Are All Things You Don't Understand

Chapter Eleven

"I'm a ninja, Ling."

Big blue eyes, filled with trust and bewilderment and something else that Ling has never vocalized but made obvious with every glance Kakashi's way. Blue eyes, and there is realization slowly creeping through them but right now they are Minato's and -

Kakashi kisses him, long and hard and passionate and without deceit.

And then he kills him.

Kakashi does not open his eyes to watch the cadaver fall, a man (who loved him) made nothing but dead weight by a simple jab of a senbon into the temple.

He does not look at the corpse. His eyes stay closed until he is in mid-turn, averted from the (pool of blood that is growing soupily) scene as he strides painfully to the door. His grip feels false (like a mannequin's) around the guilty sliver of steel.

Kakashi -

There is -

There is a void, his mother once told him quietly (cold digits brushing his brow, unusual and unnecessary physical contact that makes him faintly uncomfortable, and her eyes are cold as well, cold like their house and the metal of the kunai set his father left by Kakashi's futon the day after his second birthday). She told him, There is a void, and it is swallowing the universe. It is -

It is swallowing the universe, she said (steely eyes - like wet flint that will never spark again, just slice the fingers that fumble stiffly for warmth and flame and all of the other things a Hatake doesn't need).

She didn't say anything else.

There is a void, Kakashi doesn't tell the door in front of him.

And now it opens. The door - it OPENS, and standing before him is -

A man. A man with bloodshot eyes and a stale reek of sake and opium is standing before him, and they stare at each other not at all as the man suddenly smiles at him.

"Hey, beautiful. You seen a blond guy arou- HOLY FUCK - "

Kakashi's right hand moves of its own volition, a glint of metallic death which pierces an eye that has seen too much through to the brain.

Another thump of dead weight sprawling.

Kakashi closes his eyes and drags this new corpse entirely into the bedroom, not wincing at the agonizing pain in his rectum even though there is no one here to see. (The blood pours from his back still, not sluggish at all, and it is warm like the summer sun. He - he just hurts. He - he is so tired of hurting.)

As quickly as this, the mission has turned messy. He hears footsteps running down the hall, loud voices searching for the man who yelled before he died, and feels what is seemingly a boulder in his stomach.

The door opens again. A brunet sticks his head in and sees nothing but an illusion. So he doesn't see the hands reaching for his neck, and he certainly doesn't hear the crack of his spine.

A brunet walks out of the room, muttering and complaining under his breath. A well-built man moves by him like a force of nature before backtracking a step and seizing the brunet's upper arm. (He almost breaks the man's fingers out of somewhat rusty instinct but automatically suppresses the reflex.)

"Shinji, you found anything?"

The brunet known as Shinji sneers. And: "Do I look like I've found anything? Hands off," he growls, wrenching his arm away.

The big man glares half-heartedly, mutters, "I'll deal with you later," and is gone.

None of the peons in the hallway notice when the person wearing Shinji's face disappears.

Kakashi stands lopsidedly on the roof of the brothel, ignoring his body's protests. He is very still, very small, and no one would think he is about to -

Moonshimmer fingers fly through seals, and Kakashi feels dizzy as chakra rushes out of him (like water through a sluice) and embraces the walls of this house of - something he cannot define. He is abruptly breathless and seeing starbursts of light (minato minato minato) - and now the jutsu settles, invisibly solidifying the building into a death trap. (The Yellow Flash would kill him for having learned such a dangerously depleting jutsu - if the jounin knew. He doesn't, though, so....)

No one can get out.

Kakashi blinks once twice thrice - and blindly takes a deep breath, feeling the cuts on his back break open yet a-fucking-gain. He reaches for more chakra.

Here: the kitchens. They are empty save for a housemaid, a young girl not yet thirteen. She is thin - too thin - and her head is pillowed on bony wrists as she sleeps. She shivers in the cool night, and her body seems to lean into the warmth of the open hearth unconsciously. There is a single oil lamp flickering next to her, casting the circles under her eyes into worse relief.

Here: a gust of wind. (But the windows - the windows are closed to the chilly outdoors, so why -)

The lamp tips over.

(Cook did always say the hearth Ishida-sama demanded was pretentious and foolish.)

Kakashi opens his eyes. Something has woken him -

There is a clattering sound from the direction of the kitchen, quickly followed by hissed, unintelligible curses. Kakashi feels the clean, even soar of his sensei's chakra.

He closes his eyes and wishes for the first time in his life.

(What he wishes is: to not be here. To not have the man who is in his kitchen be in his kitchen. To be allowed to cut ties. To burn to leave to stop.)

He is so tired of hurting.

He pushes the exhaustion away. Emotions are a weakness. Emotions are are are a weakness -

He realizes in this moment that he is lying on the floor, the sight that greets his eyes nothing but the dusty darkness of the underside of his bed. (The apartment still needs to be cleaned, but this is unimportant in the face of everything.) He - does not know why he is not in his bed but is untroubled as he patiently waits to remember. (Kakashi is very used to waking up in unfamiliar places.) In a flash: team training sparring running running running hospital dinner - kakashi you missed your birthday youre twelve now - training collapsing.

Right. That would be why.

He knows to expect the pain that comes as he forces his stiff, tight muscles to move. Without wincing, he stands and straightens, only to stagger and nearly lose his balance as he falls to one knee in an abortive movement, managing to lessen the impact by half-catching on to the conveniently nearby mattress. His right bicep, tricep, and forearm scream in protest, and his lips tighten.

There is a sudden silence in the kitchen. Then: uncertain footfalls.

"Kakashi?"

"...Yes," he replies quietly.

"Good! You've got exactly seventeen minutes until breakfast is ready." The footsteps move away again, but not before Kakashi hears a low-pitched grumble of, "Still too skinny...This rate I'm going to have to start making scarecrow cracks..." that he knows is meant for his ears.

He does not think of another blond, does not think of the courtyard or the way that it seems all yellow-haired idiots of his acquaintance cluck over his weight. (Remember? Kakashi remembers. He remembers: i ambushed you on your way to dinner go eat something you're too skinny.)

He does not sigh. Instead, he carefully hoists himself up and pushes open the door of his small bedroom. He disappears into the bathroom, hoping that the Yellow Flash is as preoccupied by cooking as he sounds and won't catch sight of him as he is now, dirty and obviously still in yesterday's uniform. The commotion, louder now that the kitchen's owner has woken, is reminiscent of a particularly nasty bar brawl, snarls and intent threat and broken glass and all. The Yellow Flash is no chef.

The pounding spray of hot water eases the worst of the soreness. While he dries off, he rummages in his medicine cabinet for a topical cream and dry-swallows a couple of mild pain-killers, civilian strength so as not to impede his functioning.

He still has three minutes left when he finishes dressing, and he does a few quick stretches to limber up before finally joining his teacher.

The Yellow Flash is wearing an apron over his jounin uniform. It is simple and black and must be the jounin's because Kakashi knows that he himself does not own one. He does not cook. (Cooking is for humans. Cooking is for people who have hobbies and pets and witty conversations with the barrister at the corner cafe. Cooking - there was never anyone to teach him how. Trial and error only got him so far, all mess and waste and small fires, and cooking is for humans, not Hatake Kakashis.) Despite the neutrality of the apron, however, this sight -

Kakashi snorts, entirely forgetting the world and life and his life in this moment. The Yellow Flash whirls around, spatula in hand, and another shot of mirth streaks through Kakashi. There is a strange cough-choke noise that he will later realize to be a small laugh, and then the blond smiles and the sound is gone, all caught in Kakashi's throat as breath leaves him.

"Good morning," says his teacher.

"...Good morning." I don't want you. (A new trend starting now: he needs to lie to himself consciously, outright desperate for it to eventually become the truth. That is the way it is supposed to go, right?)

Another day. Another lie and another day.

It is six hours past breakfast, six hours past silence and withdrawal and the Yellow Flash's increasingly false expressiveness. Noon, now, and Kakashi twists in the wind to gain the momentum needed -

Crack.

Right where the neck would be. He looks at the splinters of the wooden post he has been relearning chakra projection on, and then he turns to his teacher.

Who is running Obito through seals. Kakashi wonders idly what the jutsu is before experiencing all over again a placidity in his skeleton, a lethargy in his mind, and he waits for the jounin to finish and tell him what to do next. (And he does need someone to tell him what to do, lost and losing - this is that half-second of disorientation after the stage lights go out, when adrenaline's purpose is gone and all the work has been done and a flawless performance has been given and what do you do now you ask yourself. The most useless and only answer in the world: go back to your life.)

He knows how to be this. He knows. Fuck knowing -

Here is what you need to know.

This is life - Kakashi's life - as an exercise in meaninglessness (not meaningless, in Kakashi's eyes - but Kakashi's eyes are Konoha-tinted and fixed on Minato, so no one should listen to him. He doesn't know any better) and apathy and every wrong wrong wrong situation dreamed up by humans like they are gods.

Here is what you need to know. Kakashi doesn't know anything about life and humanity and love and living. He trip hallucinates stark lines into the stunning and roll hallucinates death and desperatizes the if. He is scientific about the process even when not required and when pain should be defeated, not allowed to shatter its cycle all over the place like a masochistic wheel of fortune. Kakashi is fucked up.

Kakashi is fucked up.

He is sure there is a great explanation for this, some lesson that is too perfect and utter bullshit.

Here is what you need to know. Sometimes it is all just bullshit. Sometimes there is no reason and there are no right words and everything stays all jarred and the world is scummier than it was when it made sense.

- The ordered kind of sense, not this new, too flimsy, bullshit sense. That just has no excuse.

Kakashi spars with the Yellow Flash through a cottony, distant sort of delirium and waits to be strong again.

It is Saturday. Kakashi does not report at the bridge for training - Team Seven will not meet today. He is not exactly sure what his sensei is doing, but it involves the Hokage and the war and Kakashi does not ask. (He does not want to know. Tomorrow evening, though, he will hear whispers of blood and massacre and a quiet, quasi-haunted i cant believe i lived through it and with my career intact to boot ive never been so glad to have namikaze around. And the slightly drunk reply that will come from between hunched-over shoulders, dirty hair brushing the counter of the sake stand as a blank face grinds his palms slowly and thoroughly into his eye sockets: only thing that saved it from the clusterfuck itd been turning into good thing hes on our side huh though it didnt do emikochan or natsu or takiwara much good.)

So there is a whole new schedule for the day without the usual unwelcome hindrances. He rises at five and begins training immediately, focusing mainly on conditioning his body and muscle memory - he knows that being able to trust his body again is the most important thing. When the sky lightens, he pauses to eat two extremely nutritional, extremely revolting health bars the medic insisted he begin consuming in large quantities. Evidently Kakashi is underweight and vitamin deficient. He actually follows the woman's instructions on this, methodical with it because Medic Masai is reasonably competent - and because a shinobi has a responsibility to keep his body in top shape. If nothing else, he knows now, the rules matter more than anything. The rules will never change, will never need to be pushed away in an attempt to defy human weakness. There will be no need for abandonment on either end.

(Not like everyone whom Kakashi has put his faith in.)

He runs through katas for the entire morning. Lunch is more of the health bars.

After the sun reaches its zenith, he works on perfecting his unfinished jutsu for the first time in almost four months. (His mantra: jounin exam.)

Sunday is more of the same. But Monday:

Monday morning is blazingly bright. Sunlight is sheer and invasive, reflecting off of everything and succeeding in making even Kakashi wish he owned a pair of sunglasses. Team Seven squints their way to the Hokage Tower, to the mission center and everything they are after but will not name even in their own heads. (Strength. Recognition. The triumph of taught ideals. Happiness. Duty.) Kakashi does not look at his sensei. The Yellow Flash does not look at him.

They don't see the Hokage. Team Seven is simply a rookie squad, and they are handed a scroll by a sleepy chuunin - fortunately, Kakashi distantly notes, not one of the pair who had been manning the desk upon his return from Iwa.

"So?" Obito asks impatiently the instant they step out of the room. "What do we got?"

Blue eyes slant an indulgent look at the boy before settling into unreadability. (But Kakashi knows - ) "C-rank. We're manning a supply convoy to the Kusa border."

- Kakashi feels himself phase out. It is strange - everything seems to sharpen and deaden and fade, and he is Hatake Kakashi again. No emotion attacks him as he looks his teacher in the eye. The man breaks it, glancing away in a second flat and Kakashi isn't certain why. He doesn't care. He asks, "Expected danger?" and correctly doesn't expect eye contact with the response.

"Bandits, possibly. But there is a war going on, so it's more likely that Iwa nin will try an ambush."

Obito looks excited and nervous. Rin looks determined and nervous, but she hides it better. Kakashi doubts that either of them realize the seriousness of this mission, realize that only a few months ago it would have at least been a squad of chuunin and jounin assigned it.

"When do we leave, Sensei?"

"Tomorrow morning at nine. Meet at the gate and pack enough supplies for two weeks." His lips quirk faintly. "Obito, keep in mind that candy bars do not satisfactorily replace the need for ration bars. We don't want you fainting again."

A shameless grin. "Meh. Rations just taste so ba-ad."

"They supply all of the required vitamins and nutrients," Rin parrots, all medic-nin-in-training and Kakashi doesn't care even a little bit and the truth of that is incredible.

"Sure they do. But there should be a law against making us eat something that tastes so nasty - man, it's not even the taste. It's the rotten-yogurt texture when you swallow - "

" - Aaaaand that's enough of that topic. Obito, no candy bars. Rin, don't defend the rotten yogurt. Kakashi - " And the jounin truly looks at Kakashi for the first time today. There is no levity in his gaze when he says, "Well, I guess I'd have to get you to actually emote before bossing you on how to." Obito snickers at the supposed joke and Rin grins, half-covering it with her hand.

Kakashi doesn't care even a little bit (that they keep pushing and pulling in all the wrong directions, that the Yellow Flash is asking him to give even a tiny hint of what has gone wrong between them and stop shutting me out goddammit), and the reality of it just won't stop saving him.

He closes his eyes as his team splits up noisily, nin sandals tapping carelessly on the polished floors. His body language is more completely nonexistent than it has been in months; he should relish in it, but the best part is that even such enjoyment is not a part of this mindset's programming.

A mission. (And maybe he has been a whore his whole life and was only recently given his membership card.)