DiSCERN (Naruto Fanfic)

Chapter Two.

The first thing Kakashi hears is a loud, glass-like shatter coming from the house next door. He right about drops the bowl on the table (Minato-sensei shrieked, something about "the Miso Soup! It's spilling! Ow! I burned my hand") and the boy flips the stove off, making a hard dash toward the front door.

There was only one boy living next door now-- a young Genin boy that essentially ended up living alone because of his parents' long absences from his life.

Speaking of him, Kakashi had been right about to invite him over for dinner-- after all, the older boy was always in charge of babysitting the younger. They were probably the most automatic set of brothers in the world, both being shoved aside by parents who apparently had better things to do than care for their children.

"Wha- Kakashi?"

Minato had been over for a sort of dinner visit, needing to talk about some mission or something alone. Kakashi was reluctant to humour him, but the blond insisted he didn't mind an extra guest eavesdropping on their news. Kakashi ran out of excuses and now he had to cook dinner for the Yellow Flash of Konoha. Joy.

He scoops up a set of keys that weren't for his own door, and in his rush, he mixes up the keys twice before he manages to slot them into the doorknob.

Twisting the metal piece with a little more force than necessary, his hands shoots for the lights as soon as he realizes his neighbour's living room is flooded in darkness-- again-- and his eyes dart around, trying to locate signs of life or destruction.

"Itsuki," he calls, and when he doesn't hear a response he tries again, louder, "Itsuki?"

He hears a clatter, coming in the direction of the kitchen. There was a small light on for his room-- Kakashi makes a break in that direction, spinning around the corner because that loud glass shattering didn't sound like anything small at all. Did that huge sake pot on the shelf finally topple over?

He warned that brat so many times to store it somewhere else, because storing a heavy breakable object up high is just stupid, but no, dad put it up there and I'm not supposed to touch it! Kakashi swears he will chew this little brat's head right off the next moment he gets--

His voice is stuck in his throat.

Yes, in fact, the pot had toppled over and shattered to such many pieces it was an unrecognizable mess all over. But that wasn't the problem.

The problem was the fact that one young boy was sprawled right in the middle of the mess. Sitting upright but his legs parted in a W, the boy looked almost confused.

Staring almost fully upward to the ceiling, toward the ceiling light, he barely blinked nor showed any discomfort about the brightness. Itsuki rested his hands before him, looking up and almost basking in the light, celestially, like a sacred being.

He looked dead.

Kakashi did a double take, swallowing strongly and calming himself. He counted to ten. Took deep breaths. Then, he felt like crying. And Hatake Kakashi doesn't cry.

From the very roots of his hair to the edge of his pants, Itsuki was soaked in what stank like alcohol. Kakashi sees it immediately-- through the strands of his hair, standing out against pale skin-- was a deep, scarlet flow.

It was blood.

The boy was bleeding, heavily-- did the pot fall on his head? Fuck- it was a miracle that boy was still conscious, or maybe he wasn't and his eyes were open because he was just dead.

"Itsuki, you-- hell, what happened here?"

He reaches out, stumbling down into a crouch as he approached the younger boy.

And Itsuki's sondering trance shatters, flashing in despair and pain and so much more deep inside Kakashi can't even tell-- hollow in horror, his gaze freezes mortifyingly still, only staring blankly in one large space before him-- eyes wide, body still and frozen and so, so, so, so scared, as if he was trapped in a genjutsu or some horrible traumatic flashback that--

Kakashi's hands hover before the boy, as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch him.

He felt that if he even dared to try, the boy (or what's left of him) would be break and shatter and disappear because that's how fragile he looked right now.

Kakashi had never seen him like this.

When he does touch the boy, though, the response he gets is a violent rejection.

The boy is terrified and he yelps, slaps Kakashi's hand away, scrambling back into the wall so deeply he searches frantically around him (eyes darting everywhere, as if he was trying to recognize his surroundings to no avail, begging for help but not reaching anyone at all) as if he was trying to get away but didn't know where to go, where he was, and how to do it.

This confuses Kakashi. And Kakashi realizes that he ought to stop the boy before his head wound got aggravated-- but he doesn't, can't move.

Itsuki actually shrinks, a whimper escaping his lips. Arms shooting up protectively across his own face, his wide, frozen eyes shot down, terrified.

So weak. So fearful-- like that same day his mother yelled at him because of something stupid again and-- and Kakashi felt his heart break a little at the sight.

Kakashi hears Minato step in, hiss out a gasp, and rush right back out. He doesn't pay that action any more mind, because he knows the teacher went to fetch a medic nin.

The white-haired boy remains crouched down beside the injured boy-- and he could only watch so powerlessly as the boy refused to even try to look at him.

Then he hears it.

"Wh-" the boy sounded so shrill, so, so scared, so weak and so broken as his voice cracks through a question that really wasn't anything more than a desperate plea: "who's there?"

Suddenly Kakashi realizes that this was much worse than he'd initially surmised. A concussion, perhaps. Brain injury? He seemed conscious enough so perhaps it wasn't too serious? But one aftereffect was evident and immediate on the boy.

Itsuki can't see.