Chapter Text
It started innocent, and that’s all Kakashi intended for it to be. He had no intention of ever interacting with the girl, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and he was already en route before any of this mess started.
…
The bookstore on the corner of 6th and Maple was Kakashi’s favorite, and he was glad the big name author coming to his town had chosen it. It was quiet, spacious, with lots of places to read, and in the back, there was a well-curated used section that he really appreciated. He was always happy for an excuse to go, but this excuse was a particularly excellent one.
He’d never been star-struck before, never had much interest in celebrity, but meeting his favorite author was altogether different. He was determined not to show it, even if he had his entire collection of Icha Icha books in his bag and a hope that he’d convince the man—Jiraiya was his name—to sign them. It was a book signing, after all, it couldn’t possibly be that hard, even if he wouldn’t be there for the actual event.
As he pushed open the door with his shoulder—his arms occupied by a rather heavy box—and let himself inside, he glanced around at the banners and posters with a smile hidden under his mask. He was going to meet the author of his favorite book, who could blame him? His eye slid straight past the other posters, advertising the work of local romance author Kimiko Hayashida’s newest series, entitled After the Bite, gaze catching instead on a man he recognized from the backs of his books, larger than life as he laughed uproariously at something one of the young new hires at the store had said.
Something like nerves made Kakashi’s hands shake for just a moment, but then he braced himself, smoothed his face into its usual bored comportment, and made his approach, clearing his throat when he stood directly behind the man who was clearly striking out with the girl clearly far too young for him.
He was a huge man, tall and broad, with a long shock of white hair; when he turned, roundly abandoning the employee who took her chance to scamper off immediately, he offered Kakashi a broad, amused smile, greeting him, “They said you were reclusive and mysterious, but I really admire your commitment to the aesthetic. I mean, covered eye, the mask, I really am impressed. You are Kimiko, the local author I’m working with, right?”
“That would be me,” Kakashi answered impassively, depositing his box on the table next to them. “Here are my signed copies. I apologize that I’m not participating in the actual signing. I’m… private.” To say the very least. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat and held out his hand, adding, “I’m a huge fan, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Jiraiya took his hand and he let himself have a single internal moment of sheer glee that he worked extremely hard not to showcase on his face. “Big fan, huh?” the man asked with a friendly laugh. “Then you won’t mind if I ask you to sign a few extra things before you go, will you? My goddaughter loves you, she’s so excited that she’s moving to the town you live in. That’s why I’m here, actually, she’s moving in at Konoha Prep today, I’m making sure she gets settled in alright.”
“I don’t mind,” Kakashi allowed, internally cheering as he moved to shrug his bag off of his shoulders. “Particularly if I could convince you to sign my collection of Icha Icha novels. I’m afraid I was presumptuous enough to bring them in my pack.”
“Of course!” the man agreed, seemingly delighted by the exchange as he began pawing through a backpack that had been abandoned on one of the chairs at the table. “She’s going to be so excited. She’s a sweet girl, I’m lucky to have her. I didn’t, for a while, but I got custody here recently…”
Kakashi hummed politely to indicate that he was happy for the man, watching him withdraw a copy of his first standalone novel Splintered Heart and all three books in his Inconvenient Attachment series as he withdrew his collection of books from his own bag, along with two pens. The men traded and sat down to start signing. “I’d appreciate if you used my real name,” he said as they flipped open front covers. “Kakashi Hatake. Who should I make these out to?”
“Her name is Naruto. A little unusual, I know, but her late father actually named her after the main character of my first novel, which unfortunately remains unpublished, largely because it sucked.” He laughed, but Kakashi couldn’t hear him over the white noise that had taken over his body and was ringing in his ears. It was adding up, though, wasn’t it? Custody battle, new student at the Academy… “N-A-R-U-T-O.”
Kakashi’s shocked words left his lips quite without any input from his backfiring brain. “Naruto, as in the daughter of Minato Namikaze?”
Jiraiya’s smile dropped as he set his pen down and hit him with a look of confusion. “Yes,” he allowed slowly. “Did you… know Minato?”
Blinking rapidly, he did his best not to say what was bumping against the backs of his teeth, which was, I saw him die, I was one of the five men he saved when he threw himself down on that explosive. “We served together,” he choked out, numb fingers scrambling for his wallet. “He was my superior officer. He made us all exchange photos of each other’s loved ones, so we’d know who we’re fighting to send each other home to.” He’d been the only one on their elite team not to have a loved one to share a photo of; that fact had been what drove Minato to take him under his wing, all those years ago when he was only a kid with uncannily good aim.
He removed the wrinkled old photo from the special compartment of his wallet he kept it in and slid it across the table to the now silent and serious man on the other side. Pain entered his expression, as he moved the photo closer to himself. Kakashi didn’t have to look to see it; it was burned into his mind, a photo of a four year old girl with pigtails and dirt on her hands and a smile so wide it closed her eyes completely. “What a coincidence,” the older man breathed, seemingly stunned.
Not as much as you think, Kakashi thought but didn’t say. I’m the one that funded her scholarship. I just didn’t know she was connected to you, of all people. “Really is,” he agreed stiffly, grateful when the photo was slid back to him instead of confiscated. He wasn’t sure how weird it was, that he still carried it. “Listen… Minato saved my life, in more ways than one. If Naruto is ever hurt or needs help, and you can’t get here fast enough, feel free to call.”
Jiraiya nodded, offering him a sad smile. “I appreciate it, Kakashi, thank you. I can’t believe you’ve been carrying her photo around for this long… She’s about to be sixteen, you know. Do you want to see a more recent picture?” Yes, desperately was the answer, but he was saved from saying it; the author was already pulling out his phone, swiping through photos. “Here, this is from yesterday,” the man said. He glowed when he talked about her, affection clear in his dark eyes. He turned the phone around as he said proudly, “In her special new dorm room. She won a scholarship that put her in a room that used to be teacher housing, so she’s got a little kitchenette and her own bathroom and no roommate, like a little adult in a little starter apartment. God, I’m just so proud of her.”
Kakashi knew all about her housing because he’d insisted on it and paid for it, but he made himself hum interestedly as he committed the photo he was being shown to memory, hoping how hungry he was to see how the girl had turned out wasn’t clear on his face. (But damn, he wanted it, had been scouring social media for years trying to find her, to no avail.)
She’d grown up pretty, looked just like the photos he’d seen of Minato’s wife, who’d died a year before him from cancer. She was sitting on her new bed, her smile no less sweet for its teenaged exasperation at the man behind the camera. Her eyes were so, so blue, maybe even bluer than Minato’s, and she had an impressive amount of that same golden hair in the photo he’d been carrying all that time. “All grown up,” he forced himself to comment, forcing down strange, inappropriate impulses to say that she was stunning or cute or gorgeous or beautiful. He wasn’t supposed to think anything like that about her. He wasn’t supposed to think about her at all. “Hard to believe it’s been so long.”
“It is,” the man agreed, subdued. Then, with more of his earlier vigor, he shook it off, saying, “She’ll love that you signed these for her. Don’t worry, I won’t give away your secret identity… unless you’d like me to?”
Kakashi shook his head. They’d never meet. That’s the way it was supposed to go. “No, thank you.”
…
Three months later
Naruto was used to being bullied; it came with the territory of being a shy, orphaned, (possibly autistic?) girl with a stutter that came out when she was stressed or upset no matter how much speech therapy they put her through. She had coping mechanisms; she wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t react, would keep her eyes firmly on her book and pretend she was a statue, no matter what they said or did to her.
The shit she’d been going through ever since she showed up to this hell-on-earth rich kid school wasn’t bullying. It was more like torture. That fateful day in early November wasn’t the first time they followed her out into the gardens after dinner where she liked to read under the gazebo when it rained, and it wasn’t the first time they knocked her book from her hands when she tried to just ignore them… It wasn’t even the first time their comments had grown sexual, teasing her for being sexless, being a virgin, needing to be shown the ropes in pleasing a man.
She’d kept telling herself just don’t react, they’ll get bored, just don’t react and they’ll leave, but then Suigetsu unzipped her jacket and things got weird between her and the three rich boys who’d never known a consequence a day in their lives. She’d frozen, letting the jacket be torn from her body as her book clattered to the floor, and then Sasuke, the ringleader, had said, “Do her shirt next, maybe she’ll learn something.”
For one wild moment, Naruto had considered just letting it happen, committing to the statue bit. Then the first button flicked open on her stupid white uniform shirt and she had flipped, screaming for help until a harsh palm clasped over her mouth, Suigetsu’s other hand tearing her shirt open so the buttons flew off.
Which brought her to this moment, her legs pumping and her heart pounding behind her ribs, freezing cold and full of fear and adrenaline as she sprinted through the rain in the dark, trying to make it to the garden wall before they did. She knew a spot, where some of the stones were damaged, enough for footholds; she’d been fantasizing about running away for weeks, to the point it almost felt familiar when she started to climb. They were right on her heels, laughing and catcalling; someone caught her skirt, nearly pulling her back down before she kicked him blindly and hoisted her weight up over the wall, throwing herself to the ground on the other side with no thought at all to the rumors she’d heard about who lived there.
It was working to her advantage, though; she heard the boys hesitating, discussing the risks, but she simply booked it towards the first place that looked like she could hide in it, shivering violently as she crawled in through the glassless window of a decrepit old barn, balling herself up in the far corner and trying not to breathe as tears streamed down her face alongside the freezing rain.
For a moment, it seemed like it was over. Her heart started to slow, and she started to try to close her ruined, soaked shirt up with shaking fingers, but then she heard laughter coming closer, Jūgo’s cruel voice calling out, “Come out, come out, wherever you are, freak.”
All Naruto had to do was stay quiet. All she had to do was hold her breath and not move and wait and it would all be over, all be okay—
“Come on, idiot, we don’t have to look for her. Don’t you see her footprints in the mud?”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she was so fucked, she was hyperventilating, she was looking around for weapons but the barn was empty as far as she could tell in the dark, and then there were lights coming through the window and then there were boys coming through the window and they found her, found her immediately, shined their flashlights from their phones in her face as they dragged her out into the open and pinned her down and one of them got between her legs and she was screaming and—
The sound of a gun cocking back broke through all of it, and everything stopped. She tilted her head back against the floor, sobbing, just in time for lightning to strike and illuminate the figure in the doorway, huge and terrifying with a long gun in his hands and wild hair.
“Oh, fuck,” Suigetsu breathed, nearly whimpering.
“Oh, fuck,” the newcomer agreed, his words a deep rumble that promised violence so clearly it made all the hair on her arms stand up, even through her terror. “Everyone up except the girl. Hands where I can see them.” All she could feel for a moment was relief, as she curled into a ball on her side upon being released, crying into her knees, pitiful, stuttering thank you, thank you, thank you’s falling from her lips. “Girl. Do you want me to shoot them, call the cops, or let them go?”
Their daddies all could afford fancy lawyers. There was no point in getting the cops involved. “L-let them g-go,” she gasped into her knees. “J-just l-let them g-go.”
“Next time, I won’t ask, I’ll just shoot,” the man nearly snarled. “You heard her, fuck off.”
The boys didn’t need to be told twice; they were gone instantly, back out the window, one of them screaming all the while, and then Naruto was alone, wet, and only partially clothed in a dark barn at night with a grown man and a gun. And that was when Naruto remembered the rumors of the crazy old veteran with a drinking problem and a covered face that lived on the other side of the garden wall. The one that was rumored to have bodies buried under the barn she was lying on the floor of. The one they say took that girl who went missing from the school a decade or so back.
She flinched badly, cowering, as the man took a decisive step forward. “I—I’m s-sorry,” she gasped. “I’m s-so s-sorry, I-I-I didn’t—It was—I-I don’t—”
“Hush,” the man commanded her, and something about his baritone voice made her want to obey, shut her right up with an odd twist in her stomach. He took another step forward, then another, and crouched down beside her, setting the gun on the wet ground. “You’re hurt.”
It took her a second to connect this statement to the pain in her palms and knees and forehead. She couldn’t even remember when she’d fallen and scraped herself up, she’d been too deep in her panic. “Fine,” she was insisting, trying to push away, “S’fine, fine, I-I c-can j-just g-go, so—s-so s-sorry, please—”
“Said to hush.” The man snatched her by the wrist, keeping her from pulling away. “You can stand?” He didn’t wait for her answer, just hauled her up onto her feet like she weighed nothing; it shocked her enough that she stumbled into his hard, broad chest, causing fear to shoot up her spine like she’d been dropped in ice water. He didn’t react, though, as much as she could tell in the dark. He dipped his head down, gripping her by the arms when she tried to step away, and insisted in a much more soothing and hypnotic tone, “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe with me. Come on, let me get you cleaned up.”
She was so fucked.