The Black Plague

Chapter 4 - Underestimation

Kakashi's POV
I shifted Kuro for what felt like the thousandth time. He only seemed to get heavier in my arms the longer I carried him. He was now piggy back riding as my left arm had gotten tired after carrying him for an hour. I looked back at him now, he was sleeping with his head on my shoulders. He has been sleeping for the 3 hours we had been traveling. We were transporting a scroll to kumogakure and then iwagakure. We were only a little ways from the border when tenzo spoke up. " Senpai, why don't I carry him. You arms are tired and that's not great if we were attacked." I looked back at tenzo. That wasn't such a bad idea except I don't know if I can get Kuro off of me without waking him up and I don't even know how Kuro would react to being on someone else. But my arms are tired. "We can try but I don't know if I can even get him off of me. I also don't know if he would be ok with someone else carrying him." Tenzo gulped at the last part but reassured me that it would be fine. I motioned for us to stop and we dropped to the ground. I walked over to tenzo. I sat down on the ground as I loosened Kuro's hold around my waist. I got his legs away from my chest and leaned back so he would be lying on the ground. I then loosened his arms and he fell back against the ground. I looked up at tenzo and gestured as if to say that he was all yours. Tenzo walked over to Kuro and lifted his torso off of the ground. He sat Kuro up and then looked at me for help. I sighed and picked Kuro up. Tenzo got in front of me so I could put kuro on him. As soon as kuro was set on tenzos back he latched onto him. Tenzo was surprised at Kuro's sudden hold. He was even more surprised when that hold started to choke him. "You have to support him. Hold his legs." Tenzo looked at me slightly blue in the face. He grabbed Kuro's legs and kuro relaxed instantly. Tenzo repositioned kuro on his back and then turned to me. "I don't know what your talking about Kakashi! He loves me. I'll be fine." I looked at him skeptically. " don't come crying to me when he kills you when he wakes up." I then rocked my shoulders back and stretched my sore muscles. I motioned for us to keep moving. We all jumped into the trees and continued on our way.

Once we got to the kumogakure gates, kuro was back on me. He was still riding piggy back. He had woken up once on the way here.

We were walking down a road now in the land of lightning. Tenzo suddenly tensed and stopped walking. I looked back at him in question. I saw that kuro had woken up, and seeing that he was not on me started to choke whoever was carrying him. I walked up to them. "Hey, kuro, it's just tenzo." He seemed to squeeze tenzo even tighter at this. " hey hey, kuro look, tenzo wanted to carry you because he said that my arms were getting tired. So let go of him please." Kuro looked up at me then and relaxed although he was still tensed a bit. He reached a hand out to me. I took that as him wanting me to carry him. I stepped closer to tenzo grabbing Kuro's arm and pulling him from tenzo. I grabbed him from underneath his armpits and lifted him up off of tenzo. I brought him closer to me and he grabbed my shirt. I pulled him closer and he latched onto me. He held onto me tighter than usual and buried his head in my neck. I held him up with one hand underneath his butt and the other on his back, keeping him up straight. He rubbed his head on my neck and I patted his back a bit. Tenzo had slightly recovered from being strangled at this point. He got up from being doubled over and looked at kuro wearingly. I just shook my head and continued walking. A bit happy and less nervous now that I had kuro back on me.

Tenzo was still glancing every once in a while at Kuro. We showed the guards our mission scroll and they led us to the raikage. We walked up the stairs to his office. Kuro was sleeping; his head was on my shoulder. After being given permission, we entered the raikages office. As we got to the center, we bowed. It was a bit awkward as Kuro was still on my back. I held a little tighter as I felt him slide forward. I stood back up and looked at the raikage. He had two assistants on both of his sides. One had blonde hair and the other had white. There was also the woman who had led us here. She had taken up a position behind the raikage. " why is there a kid here?" "Raikage-Sama, he is a part of the anbu team." " a mere kid cannot be an anbu." "Ahem" the raikage looked at me. "With all due respect sir, he is quite powerful and more than capable to be in anbu. Now, we are here to transport a scroll to iwagakure after you sign it." "Hmph, was the leaf village so desperate for shinobi that they let a weak little kid be an anbu. I'm not trusting that kid to be anywhere near the scroll let alone transport it to iwagakure." Stupid raikage. Can't look past Kuro's childish appearance and see that he is powerful. And insulting Konoha. Tch. If he thinks Kuro is weak let's show him otherwise. "Raikage-sir, how about He fights one of your assistants and if he wins then you let us go on the mission. If he loses then we will go back to Konoha." He thought about it for a minute. "I will take you up on that. Darui, you will fight him. I want to make this as quick as possible so we can send them back to Konoha and I then I can get back to work." "Hai boss" Darui then turned to me. "Follow me." He walked past us and out the room with us following. We walked out the building and towards what looked like training grounds. As we were walking darui got curious. "So, does he always sleep and get carried around? Sorry about the raikage earlier by the way. He has a thing for being strong and can't believe that a little kid can be strong." "It's fine. And to answer you're first question, sadly, yes." "So is he actually an anbu, or did you get stuck babysitting?" "He's an anbu." I snapped. He looked away from me then and didn't talk anymore. We arrived at a training ground soon after and the raikage was already there. He was standing of to the side with the other 2 ninja that were in the room. "Took you long enough. Alright, let's get this over with." "Hai, boss." Darui walked a little away from me and kuro and then turned around to face us. I squeezed Kuro's legs to wake him up. He shifted his head a little bit continued to sleep. I got a tick mark. "Kuro if you don't wake up right now I'm going to let toad carry you." He raised his head at that and looked at me. So, what are we doing "we aren't doing anything. You are going to fight him." I pointed to Darui, who was watching with interest and also boredom. How does he look like that! That's like being sad and happy at the same time. Why "because the raikage doubted your strength and I made a bet that you could beat one of his assistants and then when you won we could continue our mission." What happens if I lose "we go back to Konoha and don't complete our mission. So, get off of me and fight the guy, win, and then we can go on our merry way." No Kuro put his head back down on my shoulder. "Kuro" I hissed. He didn't react. "Kuro if you don't fight him right now I'm going to have him kill you." Can't kill me "kuro" he obviously didn't hear the warning tone I had. "Ok. Hey, Darui guy. He is being a lazy butt and doesn't want to fight you, so can you just come kill him or something." He sighed. "Seriously?" "Yes, seriously." He walked over to Kuro and me and pulled out a kunai. He got behind me and kuro and put the Kunai to Kuro's back. "You sure? I mean why did you bring him if he won't even fight? He's useless." "Yes, and that is why you should kill him." Kuro, you better do something. I kinda feel bad for forcing you to fight like this, but we have to continue the mission. Darui presses down on the kunai as a warning. Kuro didn't move. He didn't even flinch as the kunai bit into his flesh. A bead of blood came out of where the kunai was placed. "Ok kid, if you really want to die then don't do anything, but if you want to live then raise your head." Nothing. Kuro still didn't react. Is he actually asleep or is he scared stiff. I don't feel his heart beating fast and his breathing is normal. What is he doing? Kuro continued to not do anything. Darui 'hmph'ed and pressed down on the kunai sending it into Kuro's heart. I jerked forward not expecting for Kuro to actually let that happen. I turned around to look at Darui. He was a little surprised and also confused. I looked over at Kuro, he looked like he was still sleeping. I pulled him off of my back and took the kunai out of his back. I laid him down on his back and checked for a pulse. Nothing. I started to really feel the panic then. I checked if he was breathing. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Ah crap kuro! Why didn't you do anything! Oh god, now you're dead, but you can't be! Oh no no no no no... I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned to look at them to see kuro. My eyes widened in shock. "Kuro?" He cocked his head and ruffled my hair. I looked back down at the dead 'kuro'. It was still there. It isn't a shadow clone, so what is it? I hope it isn't an actual dead body. I looked up at Darui now and he was staring at kuro. He kept switching his gaze from the dead 'kuro' back to Kuro. "So kuro, will you fight him now?" I looked back at kuro. He looked at me and then at Darui. He ruffle my hair. I smiled. "Alrighty then, Darui, kuro will fight you. Hopefully this time kuro won't bring a dead body for a substitution." I stood up taking 'Kuro's' dead body with me. I walked over to where the raikage, his assistants, and the other anbus were. I got them and stood next to my team while throwing the body behind us. Lizard went and checked what the heck that thing was. I tuned him out and payed attention to the fight.