A Dragon's Fate

Chapter 7

Third person pov

Kakashi woke up at ten in the morning, which was extremely late for someone like him. His alarm always went off at six in the morning. One, sharp beep. It was sign that he had fifteen more minutes before he had to get up. He'd drift back off, and fifteen minutes later, his alarm would blare. He would always pop right up without trouble, and speedily get ready for his day.

He woke up sore, but well rested that morning. Along with his aches and pains, he got a stomach that was just begging for food. He hadn't had time to eat when running through the forest at top speed, and he certainly hadn't eaten when he got home. He was sure he had some canned soup or a box of cereal saved. If not, he could go across the street to the little convenient store to pick something up.

Yawning, Kakashi slid off his bed. His bare feet landed softly on the the smooth, oddly warm floor. Kakashi looked down. He hadn't had time to turn on the heater, but his bed seemed awfully warm. He had brushed that off, but the floor too? Something was going on. The air was reasonably cold, so he knew the heater hadn't turned itself on, and hadn't been turned on. It was almost as though his bed were distributing it's own source of heat.

Narrowing his eyes at the ground, Kakashi's eyes widened when he realized that there were faint scratch marks there. They were very shallow, but way too big to be one of his dogs. Besides, his dogs all had their nails trimmed short, and they always walked lightly on his floor. Bull even went so far as to only roll when he was inside. While it did look odd, it worked for the huge dog, and that's all that mattered. Not that his dogs were really in his apartment all that often.

Scooting away from his bed, Kakashi had to wonder what animal could be so warm that it was heating his bed, but also big enough to leave those marks. He was surprised he noticed them, he was still so tired. Well, he was. Not so much anymore. Even his hunger had temporarily subsided. The silver-haired ninja feared there was a bear under his bed, or some sort of giant wolf.

But why his apartment? It was pretty near the middle of the whole building, and the creature would have to climb stairs to get in. Kakashi looked around the room, his eyes landing on the door leading to the balcony. It was clearly unlocked, and there were more claw marks there. These one's were deeper, as though it hadn't thought about being sneaky. Kakashi slowly made his way over. Whatever was under his bed was probably sleeping.

Kakashi couldn't believe he hadn't locked his balcony door. He must have been in a big rush to have forgotten that. Peeking out, he saw that the railing was dented. Something big and heavy had definitely come through here. But Kakashi didn't see any claw marks on the walls, and there's no way a bear could jump that high. Or any animal for that matter.

Kakashi gulped, feeling nervous for once. He scrambled over to his gear, not bothering to close the balcony door. Drawing a kunai, the boy did his best to collect himself. If anyone could do this, it was him. He was strong, and almost a jonin. It was probably just some really smart bear. Maybe the claw marks just weren't in his line of vision. 

Kakashi backed himself up as far as he could. When this thing came out, he definitely didn't want to be right in it's line of fire. Looking closely, he could clearly see the outline of something lying there. He just couldn't tell what exactly this 'something' was. Whatever it was, it had slept through him coming home. Or it probably had. Either way, it didn't eat him. Maybe it wouldn't be aggressive. 

Grabbing a pan, Kakashi took a deep breath.

And he dropped it.