Will of Fire: Kakashi Hatake

Chapter 3

Weeks had gone by, and yet her small apartment still did not yet feel like home. Nothing felt like home. Nothing felt familiar. Except for the blood pumping through her ears as Akira trained harder than she had ever done before.

Ever since that fateful night, Akira had thrown herself into her training. She was getting stronger, physically, and in her ninjutsu. She had started to develop her own way of summoning and controlling her chakra, as she found the hand signs most shinobi used to be much too distracting. No matter how many times she practiced hand signs, she somehow always messed one up in the heat of the moment.

Akira had continued to do her morning runs, but instead of running around the village once, she would run as fast as she could for as long as she could, completing two laps before the sun was even up. She would train until nightfall, only stopping for meal breaks. She still stopped by Kakashi's place on the way back, though she wouldn't stay as long as she used to. She would climb the tree to see if he had left a snack for her, make sure he was awake, then leave promptly afterward.

Her teammates had noticed a change in her, as well as her sensei. She was much quieter during training, and only spoke when necessary during missions. Her team had begun to regularly do C-ranked missions. All of them were successful.

It wasn't long before the chunin exams crept up, and soon it was the day of the first exam. They were being held in the village this year, which made Akira glad. Home turf was always an advantage.

Akira walked up the tree to the branch outside of Kakashi's window. To her surprise, he was sitting on the windowsill waiting for her.

"Good morning Kashi," she greeted with a small wave.

"Morning," he stifled a yawn. "Chunin exam day one, huh?"

"Something like that."

She sat down on the branch across from his window. Kakashi held out a plate for her to take. On it was a pile of scrambled eggs, bacon, and two pieces of toast. Akira's eyes widened at the food.

"Wow Kashi, thank you." She exclaimed, and took the plate from him. She picked up her fork and started digging into the eggs. They were the perfect texture, nice and fluffy, still warm, with a hint of salt and pepper.

"It's a big day, you need your nutrients," he said with a shrug. "You nervous?"

Akira shook her head. "Not really," she responded in between bites, "excited, I guess? I don't know."

It was a half-truth. Akira was excited, she wanted to be promoted to chunin and earn her vest. But she was also sad. Her parents had been looking forward to this day. She didn't know how to feel about it anymore.

Kakashi nodded in understanding. "How are you healing up?"

Akira shrugged. She felt fine. Her ribs no longer bothered her, her knee was back to normal, and the gash that had opened her shoulder had healed into a knotted scar. It was her heart that would never heal now. But she pushed that thought away as she finished her eggs and went after the bacon.

"Can you tell me anything about the exams?"

Kakashi shook his head. "That's cheating."

Akira rolled her eyes. "Fine." She shoved another piece of bacon in her mouth. "How are you doing? How's the ANBU?"

This time Kakashi shrugged. But Akira could feel the twist of doubt in his chakra. She stopped eating and raised an eyebrow at him. "Kashi?"

"Lot of stuff going on." He wouldn't elaborate past that, and they both knew it.

"Maybe I'll join the ANBU one day." Akira mused, going back to her food. She finished her bacon and started on the toast. The toast had a little bit of cinnamon sugar sprinkled on it. The corners of her mouth twitched upwards in a tiny smile at the taste. It tasted a bit like home. Like how her mother used to make her toast.