Will of Fire: Kakashi Hatake

Chapter 38

They walked until they were well out of earshot of Seek. Akira was climbing over logs and downed trees and pushing through bushes all the while. Her arms were scraped to hell now. It reminded her of the times when she would sneak over to the training grounds as a little kid and watch her uncle's team training. The first time she had met Team Minato had been the first time she'd gone to watch them. Unsurprisingly to her now, Kakashi had been the first one to see her.

The tiny, three-year-old girl quietly snuck through the woods toward the training ground. Her uncle was there with his students. The girl had heard him say so, the previous night at dinner. She knew where it was because she had asked her dad to show her where all the training grounds were the week prior.

The sounds of objects hitting wood echoed through the forest. The girl grinned and scampered behind a tree. She carefully peeked out in the direction of the training ground. She could see a grassy field only a short distance away through the trees. She saw her uncle and his three students, and they appeared to be practicing throwing something. She tiptoed to a closer tree to get a better look but found that that tree wasn't satisfactory either.

Fallen leaves and small twigs crunched under her sandals as she crept from tree to tree until she reached the last tree at the edge of the forest.

Now she could see what they were throwing. It was the star weapons. But...what were they called again?

Shur-ken! The girl thought excitedly, proud that she had remembered the name.

They were doing shuriken practice. The little girl easily picked out her uncle, as he was the tallest and had yellow hair. He was standing back behind the three other people. She assumed those were his students. They weren't adults, but they weren't her age either. Somewhere in between, perhaps.

But one was different from the other two. He was a bit shorter and stood out the most among the three students because he had silver hair. A mask covered the lower half of his face. There was something different about him. Something...darker. Sadder.

The girl leaned a little further out from behind the tree to get a better look at him.

He walked over to his target across the field and pulled his shuriken out of it. He spun on his heel and made his way back to his starting position. When he lifted his head, he looked directly at the little girl.

Akira gasped. But not in fear for getting caught. No. It was his eyes.

"Wooow," she whispered. They were the prettiest eyes she had ever seen, and she was captivated. His eyes were darker than night itself, but as rich as the starry sky. They were beautiful.

But they were sad as well.

She saw the same deep sadness that the shinobi coming back from the war had in their eyes. They all said the same thing: they had lost a friend in battle. The little girl knew that that meant their friend had died, and was never coming home again. Someone this boy cared a lot about must have died too.

"Minato-sensei, there's a little girl over there!" The boy shouted, pointing at the little girl.

"Ack!" She yelped, and ducked back behind the tree. She pressed her back to the trunk and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Obito, Rin, let's take a break," she heard her uncle say. His footsteps rustled across the grass toward her hiding place. "Come out, come out, Akira, I see you!"

The girl giggled. She just had to stay really still, then she would be a good shinobi and hide from him.

"Gotchya!"