Will of Fire: Kakashi Hatake

Chapter 1

Akira was standing on her tippy-toes, and her calves were getting tired from holding herself up like that. But she didn't stop washing Kakashi's hand despite this. She took another squirt of soap into her hands and gently rubbed his hand some more.

She glanced up at his face, pleased to see that he wasn't crying anymore. His left eye was closed now, his sharingan no longer staring down into the sink. He looked tired.

Akira took that as her cue and rinsed Kakashi's hand one more time. She shut the water off and grabbed the towel that was sitting on the counter. She set back down on her heels and pulled Kakashi's hands out of the sink. She dried his hands and her own.

"It's all gone Kashi," she said quietly. She lifted his hands for him to see as if he wasn't already staring at them. She gave him a big smile. "See? It's all gone!" She tried to put some happiness in her voice.

He stared at his hands for a few moments, before finally meeting her eyes. It wasn't a glare he gave her. It wasn't a smile either. It was something in between, that Akira couldn't really read. But she could feel his emotions through his chakra. He was still sad, a sadness so dark that it was black. And angry. But he was also grateful. A little glimmer of light in that darkness.

She let go of his hands and took a step backward towards the window. He watched her go. "I gotta go to school Kashi. But don't worry, it's all gone."

"Don't be late for school." He said quietly. He dropped his hands to his sides.

Akira turned towards the window. She didn't realize how far she had dropped until she was climbing back up. The window was really high on the wall. She could barely reach it, and only then could only stretch her fingertips up to it. She started to funnel chakra into her feet to climb the wall when she felt hands under her arms. Then she was lifted up to the window. She grabbed hold of the window and pulled herself up the rest of the way, swinging one leg out and grabbing hold of the branch above her head. She looked back down to see Kakashi below her.

"Thank you," he said softly.

Akira smiled a big, toothy smile at him again. "It's all gone. I promise."

Then she pulled herself the rest of the way out of the window and made her way down the tree. She started running for her house, on the other side of the marketplace. She still wasn't sure why Kakashi had been scrubbing at his hand so hard, but she knew that she had at least helped him get whatever he thought was on it off a little bit.

The next day when she ran to his apartment and up the tree to the branch outside of Kakashi's window, there was a plate sitting on the window sill with a few pieces of freshly cooked bacon on it. The pieces of meat were still steaming in the brisk morning air. Akira's face lit up. She grabbed the plate and started munching on the bacon happily. She glanced into Kakashi's apartment and saw him sitting at his small table reading a book, eating his own bacon. Akira grinned.

When she finished the bacon, she carefully placed the plate back down on the windowsill and slipped back down the tree. Clearly, Kakashi knew that she was going to come by again, so she figured that he would know that she had eaten the bacon. He seemed to know everything. She ran back to her house with a smile on her face.

Her routine continued like that, every morning she would run to his apartment and up the tree and there would be some sort of food out for her. Sometimes it was bacon, sometimes a piece of fruit if he had had a particularly early morning. One morning he had set out a stack of pancakes. Akira had had to walk home after that one so that she wouldn't throw up. When it got colder in the mornings and snow began to fall, there would be a mug of hot apple cider for her.

Akira's favorite part of her day quickly became her morning runs. She would push herself faster each morning so that she could get to Kakashi's faster and find the awaiting food. He wasn't always there, but she knew he had been and was pleased that he was at least getting up each morning. She hadn't seen him scrubbing at his hands anymore. Only dishes.