Painfully Aware with So Much to Learn

Chapter Thirty: Before...

Kakashi was staring at the ceiling of his shinobi-issued apartment. He waited patiently in his bed for the man he could sense pacing outside his door to work up the nerve to knock. It had been a while since he felt Asuma's chakra, and Kakashi had to say that it had grown since he was twelve. He finally heard a knock on the door, a heavy one, Kakashi could smell the anxiety from his former schoolmate through the door.

"Ye-"

"Kakashi, I need your help." The boy said, his voice cracking more than a normal seventeen-year-old's in his worry.

"What do you need?"

"It's Naruto..."

Kakashi felt his heart sink under his unmoving exterior. He always felt the same way when his sensei's son was brought up, and the fact that he couldn't even look at the familiar face of his past in the form of a child was why he hated the few nights a year he had to spend in Konoha.

"I hadn't thought of it before, I'm such an idiot, if it weren't for Kurenai-" the ANBU cut off the jonin's rambling.

"What are you talking about, Asuma?" His voice level and monotone, even though he was having a slightly less than neutral interaction at ass-O'-clock in the morning.

"I haven't seen Naruto" with that Kakashi pauses. "I thought you and Hokage-sama were watching him, did you loose him or-?" Again he was cut off.

"Nonono, Dad put him in an orphanage nine months ago, you weren't there, he said it would be safer for him if we cut contact-"

'Bullshit' Kakashi thought bitterly, the edge of his mouth stitching into a snarl under his mask. 'Putting Naruto in an orphanage wouldn't save him from targeting, it would put a red circle on his back. The only thing Naruto leaving would do is save the Hokage's own hide.' He thought darkly, trying his best to keep the aura of neutral around him.

"-and Kurenai mentioned it earlier, she said she was talking with that girl that works at the ramen stand, apparently she had seen Naruto about a month ago. I tried visiting Naruto today even with my father's orders, apparently Naruto had a huge hand bruise on his arm? But when I went to ask the matron she said he was at the park, but I looked there and he wasn't there and Dad caught me and brought me home." The boy rambled, looking at the ground.

Bruising? Misdirection? Naruto gone? Kakashi was beginning to itch, a bad itch. He had a bad feeling and it was plain and obvious Asuma felt the same.

"I'm going to look for him." Kakashi stated, and was about to shunshin but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"I'm coming too, he's like a brother to me."

And with that, the two headed off. They first stopped at the orphanage, but they didn't sense his presence at all. "That-He should be here, its past ten, a three-year-old shouldn't be out this late..." while Asuma stated the obvious, Kakashi brought put his ninken.

"I need you to scout the building, look for sensei's- Naruto's scent." He said, releasing his pug on the building. The pug was back in seconds. "Couldn't smell him, the back reeks of blood it makes me sick..." Kakashi heard his pug continue but he couldn't focus on that. He'd only been on two missions gorey enough to make Pakkun sick, and his own stomach sank at the thought.

Asuma was staring at the pug with a horrified look, his face paler than Kakashi's. A quick glare sent his way and the two were of toward the back door. The itch in Kakashi's gut increased tenfold when he felt the weak and flickering chakra of his sensei's son. He kicked down the door.

Asuma threw up, Kakashi would have done the same if he weren't trained for things like this.