Title: A Conflict of
Interests
Author: desolate
butterfly
Genre: Gen/Drama
Pairing(s):
Kakashi/Obito if you squint. Also Itachi being...Itachi.
Rating: PG
Hatake Kakashi was pretty much the only member of Itachi's squad that didn't hate him for being younger than him.
It would have been pretty hypocritical for Kakashi to resent Itachi for being his superior at only thirteen years of age, since just scant years earlier, Kakashi himself had been the subject of quite a few whispered complaints about "young upstarts thinking they're tough guys" when he first started in ANBU.
Uchiha Itachi was efficient. He killed fast and killed clean, so it really didn't matter to Kakashi that he was only thirteen years old.
What bothered Kakashi about Uchiha Itachi was something so irrational that he really couldn't justify it, not even to himself. And yet…
--
"Shouldn't we go back for him?" Kakashi asked, struggling to keep up with the dark form of the Uchiha, darting through the trees in front of him.
Itachi didn't answer and Kakashi resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. The screams of the newest member of Squad Four (what was his name? Takato? Tekata? He was given the animal mask of the raven and that's all Kakashi could remember about him) still reverberated in the air behind them.
It had only been a simple flesh wound, a small glance to the leg, barely worth bandaging. But it had been enough to knock the mission out of whack, and enough to get the new guy down and pinned full of kunai.
Not enough to stop Itachi from killing the target, though. His blade still shone wet with blood as he leapt from tree branch to tree branch, sending droplets spinning to cover the leaves below.
A moment later, the screaming stopped. Kakashi tensed, but did not turn around. He saw Itachi stop in front of him and slowed.
"Captain?"
Itachi's eyes were black, that was the problem.
They were black and cold and completely unaffected by the fact that they had just left a team mate to die by his own hand (because ANBU were given rules about the kinds of things that were expected from them if they were ever caught) and what was really wrong was that they weren't familiar eyes. Not at all.
"There is no room for failure here, Kakashi-san," Itachi says, softly, face absolutely expressionless.
And Kakashi understands. He understands completely.
But Itachi's eyes are bone dry and Kakashi hates him for that, because...because...
'Obito would have cried.'
--
Kakashi leaves ANBU the next day.
Fin.