A Hole in One's Village [Kakashi Hatake]

Chapter 4: Who Else

The first Bakashi chapter from this book! Yay! I quite like writing in his point of view so there definitely will be more to come. Enjoy!

--------------Kakashi's POV--------------

     I could see the gates of the village coming into view slowly. Ana had drifted into a state of half-sleep about two miles ago, and my arms were starting go numb with pins and needles from carrying her the entire way back. Tsunade offered to take Ana for a bit about half way through the journey, but I had turned her down. Now it was too late to go back, and I was just hoping that the two elite medical-nins with me wouldn't notice that after I'd lectured Ana about exceeding her limits, I had done the exact same thing.

     Her arms were wrapped tightly around my neck, her face was nestled into my chest, and her hair was starting to fall out of the neat braid that she had woven it into. The sunlight filtering through the trees glittered off the strands, making it shine like polished walnut streaked with bits of copper and gold. Even nearly passed out with chakra drain and drooling on my vest, Ana was beautiful.

      The hand that was wrapped securely around her stomach played with a few of the errant hairs as her muffled voice protested, "Put me down or I'll steal Pakkun." Her threats had been increasingly more pathetic as the journey continued, and they also happened to be becoming more adorable too.

      "I don't think that will work since I can always summon him to me."

      She gave an noncommittal grunt, "That's neither here nor there. Put me down or I'll... uh, kiss you."

      "Ana, that wasn't really a threat."

      "I haven't brushed my teeth since this morning so I think that it was," her sleepy voice made her sound much younger than she was, and I nearly laughed out loud at how petulant she had sounded.

      "Can I mention that that's kind of gross?"

      She yawned, "That's why it's a threat. Shouldn't you be quaking in your boots?"

      "Well, I'm wearing sandals, and it'd be a little hard to shake and carry you at the same time."

      "Which is why your arms are currently shaking with exhaustion, right?"

      Crap. I should have known that I wouldn't be able to hide my fatigue from a ninja of her caliber.

      "Hm, they're shaking? I didn't notice."

      She yawned again and wiggled even deeper into my embrace in a way that reminded me strongly of a cat, "Your arms have been shaking for the last twenty minutes, and your pace has slowed considerably for the last twelve. I haven't said anything because the gates are about ten seconds away now. But just know that after I get a good night's sleep, I'm so going to lecture you about being a hypocrite."

      Oddly enough, the promise of a lecture was not nearly as terrifying as it should have been. "Was that another threat?"

      "Let me rephrase: put me down or I'll lecture you about being a hypocritical fool."

      "See, that threat doesn't work either because we both know that you're going to lecture me whether I put you down or not."

      "Meh, stop it with your logic. I'm too tired right now for logic."

      I slowed down to a walk as we entered the village, giving a small smile to Izumo and Kotetsu, closing my eyes so that they could see it over my mask. Their jaws dropped as they saw the haori that I was wearing which signified that I had taken the up mantle of Hokage, finally.