Hatake Kakashi: Fascination

Hatake Kakashi: Fascination: Part II

It didn’t take long for her to find him, as he wandered slowly through the trees, in the general direction of her trap she stuck close, but knowing he’d already sensed her presence, she couldn’t escape as quickly as she’d planned and was forcing into hand-to-hand combat with him.  Taijutsu wasn’t her strongest point, and she couldn’t avoid some sharp kicks which would leave her with large bruises later. Luckily, her kage bunshin had good timing, and it threw a kunai at Kakashi but as he and Oriko were still fighting, he could only dodge it forcing him to leap back a few paces which gave Oriko the opening she needed to lead him into the trap.

Oriko, turned to throw some sebon needles in his direction, one of which had a chakra thread attached, as he deflected them with his kunai, the last trailing one with thread attached moved contra to his prediction.  As she tugged on the chakra thread it avoided the kunai and kept on heading for Kakashi, as he ducked, he guessed that a thread would be the cause of the troubled and slashed at it with the kunai.

“Not bad, Oriko, but it’ll take more than that to win,”

“Just seeing if you’re still awake,” She commented back, hoping that her jutsu would work, and that all the training she’d done in gathering chakra wouldn’t fail her now.

She ran as fast as she was able and reappeared in the small group of trees between which she’d set up her traps, as she landed none had been set off and so guessed she hadn’t stepped on any wires, but was desperate to look down and check – but if she did that, Kakashi would be immediately alerted to their presence.

Her kage bunshin had been taken out by him a few seconds before and she knew that he was in the vicinity, but couldn’t risk yet revealing her secret weapon without knowing exactly where he was; calming herself as well as concealing herself behind a tree and in a small thicket of undergrowth, she attempted to search for his presence or chakra signature (something she’d discovered she was able to do after some mornings of quiet meditation before her warm up in waiting for him) and could feel him close by, but something was odd about it…he was…below me!

A doton element! She, sharp to her feet, leapt off the ground and attached herself to the trunk of the tree, some fifteen feet up and began to form hand seals as Kakashi appeared from seemingly nowhere, about to take Oriko out; just as he stood, Oriko realised her charka was a lot less than she thought, and her jutsu only half-formed, but still effective and she sent it flying towards him, in a small cloud of blades made purely of wind chakra; with only a split second to react, he managed to dodge them but they in turn cut some of the wires and released her traps. She, not paying enough attention to her surroundings, watched Kakashi intently as he attempted to dodge all of the shuriken and kunai, but eventually one struck him in the chest. But instead of drawing blood, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“That would have worked, Oriko, if you had accounted for the likelihood me using a kage bunshin,” The lazy voice of Kakashi spoke suddenly from right beside her, as she could too, feel the cool metal of a kunai on her neck.

“Shit,” She commented,

“You lose….again,” He smiled as she turned to face him with a slightly disgruntled expression, “But I am impressed with your strategy and that jutsu you used, excellent work, this is a drastic improvement from last time,” They both jumped from the tree back the ground and Oriko turned to face him, but in setting eyes on him fully, she couldn’t resist the amusement that overcame her and she burst into hysterical laughter.

“What?” Kakashi asked, feeling rather confused at her sudden snickering, “What are you laughing at?”

“He-he, y-you have… y- your hair, hahaha,” She seemed unable to form any more complete sentences and Kakashi lightly grabbed the tip of his hair, and in looking back at his hand, he found it to be covered in spider-webs. Sighing in exasperation he put his kunai away and lifted both hands, to begin removing the spider webs, Oriko’s laughter subsiding but still present as she watched him pull his hands roughly through his hair, removing the mass of spider webs which had come to inhabit the top of his head.  Kakashi resisted matching her smile, feeling irritated (as well as slightly amused) that his attempts to remain dignified and to win the spar ‘cool-ly’ had failed so miserably due to a small group of spiders.

“Haha, no match for the spiders, eh?” She eventually calmed her laughter just as Kakashi had finished removing the visitors from his hair and they began on their way back to the centre of Konoha.

“Oriko, I’ll say well done once more; that jutsu of yours has been well thought out, but you need more practice with it – which perhaps is something you can work on… tomorrow is our day off, and then we’ll need to go on another mission, meet me outside the Hokage’s office at nine o’clock then.” Kakashi continued as they walked in the direction of Konoha, Oriko nodding to his words,

“Hai, no problem…and…thanks,” She returned, a little shyly, as Kakashi flashed her what looked to be a smile of encouragement, this one seeming a little more… genuine than those previous.

“Do you know what rank mission we’d be doing?”

“Not sure, probably a C rank,” His quiet revere creeping back to his voice; she didn’t say any more and neither did he for a little while, they walked in a comfortable silence.  She easily felt his presence as he walked close beside her; there was something a little odd about it, but she couldn’t really place why. If she were back in the world where she came from (and Kakashi was there too), they wouldn’t have had the friendship (or at least acquaintance) they had now…

They would be as much strangers to each other as they were they day they met.  The shinobi world, at least to Oriko’s fresh eyes was a great place, and where the boundaries in her world didn’t exist; she was grateful for the opportunities afforded to her by the shinobi one, and would make a big effort not to take any of them for granted.

“Well, I’m this way,” She eventually spoke, glancing at Kakashi, who came to a halt,

“Sure, see you two days,” He spoke as she gave him a short wave and turned to walk the rest of the short way back to her small apartment, leaving Kakashi behind her.

Not quite meaning to slam the door behind her as loudly as she did, pulling off her zori from her rather sweaty feet, before walking over to her small kitchen, quickly grabbing a can of peach juice from the fridge and guzzling it down – it immediately refreshing her tired body.  She walked over and slumped down on the sofa, feeling quietly pleased that she’d achieved her mission for the day: to not loose quite as badly to Kakashi as she did the last time.