Genkaku (Naruto fanfic)

Chapter 15: Tree Hugging

"Is that my shirt?"

Shizuka startled out of her thoughts at her cousin's voice, causing her to jostle the needle and prick herself in a finger. Cursing softly, she stuck the now stinging finger in her mouth for a second, the metallic tang of blood sharp on her tongue.

"There was a hole in it." She  explained as she waved at the nearly patched up tear near one of the shoulder seams. The thread was a shade darker than the original seam so her repair job was more obvious than it should have been.

"So you fixed it?" He asked bewildered. "Why?"

"Because I can." She responded dryly. "I was bored so I asked Tsunami-san for some thread. It's not exactly the right shade of blue but at least it's better than having a tear in it. If you want, I can redo it with the right color when we get back to the village."

"Hn"

After cutting off the excess threat carefully with a kunai, she threw the now repaired shirt into Sasuke's face. She sent him a smug look in return for his annoyed glance.

"You're welcome."

Sasuke picked up the shirt from his head with an annoyed huff before carefully folding it and putting it back in his pack.

"Kakashi's awake."

Shizuka perked up at that. 

"Finally."

After returning the leftover thread to Tsunami and thanking her profusely for letting her use some of it (she knew high quality thread when she saw it), she scurried into her sensei's room, a sense of relief accompanying the sight of his opened eye.

Naruto and Sasuke were already inside with the former hovering closely to their sensei anxiously and the latter leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed nonchalantly like he couldn't care less.

"How are you feeling, Kakashi-sensei?" She asked, letting her gaze scan over his still too pale visage (or at least the visible part).

"I think I may have overdone it with my Sharingan." He muttered sheepishly as he sat up straighter in bed. "I apologize if I worried you guys."

Must be embarrassing to pass out in front of your genin.

"But" Tazuna poked his head into the room. "You defeated such a strong ninja. We should be okay for a while."

"What about that stupid masked kid?" Naruto balked.

"He's a trackin nin from Kirigakure." Kakashi explained calmly. "The masks are worn by the most elite shinobi. They destroy all traces of rogue nin corpses to protect the jutsu and chakra from being taken by rival villages. When a shinobi defects, a tracker nin will hunt them down, eliminate and destroy all evidence of their existence on the spot."

"On the spot?" Shizuka repeated. That tracker nin from a few days ago certainly didn't deal with the body on the spot. Then again, a rivaling village's squad was there so maybe there was some protocol that stated to not destroy the body in the presence of enemy nin?

She saw Sasuke shift to attention from the corner of her eye.

"He took the body with him." He muttered.

"And he used senbon, too. A mostly non-lethal weapon..." Kakashi trailed off.

Shizuka sucked in a sharp breath.

"So he's still alive then?"

"But we saw the dead body!" Naruto screeched. "Kakashi-sensei said he was dead!"

"His heart had stopped." Their teacher agreed. "But it must have been some sort of temporary state of death. While senbon can kill if they hit a vital organ, there isn't really anything in the neck to immediately kill without a bunch of blood... Tracker nin are trained to know every detail of the human body. Temporarily stopping the heart would be possible for them..."