Work Text
Feminine hands clutched the cold tile of a hotel vanity. The small white scars and flecks scattered about the milky skin. Scars were among her only clues as to who she was before her master found her. Among them, a ragged scar ran across her abdomen. Jagged and thick, a roughly stitched reminder of how she was found. It was nothing compared to the small reminder on the back of her head, with its cracked lines creating a part in her hairline. Not that it mattered, her thick curly silver hair was more than enough to hide the deficit it caused. Dark gray eyes looked back at her in the foggy mirror. She had seen those eyes before on someone else once. In her dreams.
“Mina, my name is Mina. Mina,” she said aloud as though to remind herself.
Vestiges of the last night's dream lingered at the forefront of her mind. The boy's face, a preteen this time, smiled at her with his eyes. She could hear him calling to her, ‘Mina,’ as he faded into shattered memories. He was a soft kiss on the forehead from behind masked lips, small warm arms that encircled her with love. Even in her foggy mind, she could smell ozone and dog fur. Part of her was sure, he was home. Though, where ‘home’ was, she had no idea.
Shaking her head one last time to clear the fog, she opened the bottle of headache medicine and quickly downed two pills before placing it back on the counter. Ueda-shishou would not be pleased if she lingered here. After all, she had business with the Hyuuga clan today in Konohagakure No Sato. Though not their best client in the Land of Fire, the Hyuuga clan was no less important to the kimono maker. Her master had promised that they ordered only the most intricate and original designs. Originality was her strong suit.
A deep navy blue kimono, elaborately embroidered with silver thread to mimic a stormy sea. Shocks of cobalt ran through the imagery and intertwined to create rods of lightning. The obi she had chosen was almost simple in comparison. With a last pull on the obijime on her waist, she picked up her work bag and walked out of the hotel room door.
Water and suds dripped from the top of the memorial stone wetting the moss below as Kakashi scrubbed away the dirt that had accumulated in the past month. With a careful finger, he traced the kanji: Hatake Kaminari. He always wondered if he would have been a better brother if she would have lived. If he had trained with her more, perhaps.
When he visited these sacred grounds, he always left her stone for last. Minato-sensei, Rin, Obito, and Kushina, their stones were all freshly cleaned and scrubbed after every ANBU mission that the gods saw fit to return him from. To mock him, to punish him with this living hell of a life. Even as he closed his eyes to rest, his sister lived among the ghosts that haunted him. The biggest haunt of them all.
His thumb gently stroked the faded purple silk ribbon in his hand before he closed his eyes and let her ghost speak. Imprinted all too well in his memory was the day he came back from Kannabi bridge. His equipment hadn’t even been off for more than five minutes before Genin Uchiha Shisui had knocked on his door.
“Hatake-san,” the eight-year-old genin greeted him with a grave expression. His hollow eyes and pale cheeks were stark against a filthy navy shirt.
Kakashi looked behind the genin for his baby sister but did not see her. He opened the door wider and allowed the younger boy into the Hatake apartment. The moment he was past the entrance Shisui had bowed down on his hands and knees in front of the teenager with Kaminari’s tanto and hitai-ate in his hands.
“Hatake-san,” Shisui started thickly. The expression on his face did not look right with the baby fat still on his cheeks. “Your sister has been killed in the line of duty defending the last of our genin squad. She...shshee...she told me to bring you…” the younger boy sniffled but resolutely continued, “Her hitai-ate and tanto.”
“You’re...the only survivor?” Kakashi murmured, his voice on the edge of cracking. His hands shook and he collapsed to his knees. He looked up towards a blue door that would never be carelessly thrown open again. A small pair of pink recreational shoes sat neatly in a cubby. The purple silk ribbons that tied them together reflected the dim light. They would never be worn.
A broken sob from the younger boy kneeling before him was the confirmation he needed to add to his own anguish. An eternity passed in that moment as the two boys let their shared pain flow between them.
Kakashi didn’t know if he was speaking to himself or the younger boy as grief settled around them and he put his hand on Shisui’s shoulder. “Get up, Shisui-san. You are going to live with the loss of your team. You are going to honor them and make sure that their sacrifice was not in vain. Live the way—the way they would have wanted you to.”
Before Shisui parted that day, Kakashi ostensibly gave him Kaminari’s tanto so he would remember the promise to honor his team’s sacrifice. In truth, he couldn’t bear to look at it. The small wolf on the leather scabbard was more reminder than he needed as he resolved to disappear completely behind his mask.
The ribbon was still soft in his hand, the one reminder he allowed and kept in his hitai-ate. It was one of the only things that survived the kyuubi attack.
“Maa, Mina. Your genin teammate is doing fine. Seems a little stressed, but he’ll hold. You probably wouldn’t approve, but I bought him a copy of
‘Icha-Icha’
for his birthday yesterday. I know, Obito. You’d think that’s hilarious. Today’s your death anniversary, ya know. It’s been ten years since both of you died. I’ve always found it ironic that two of the most important people to me died within a space of three days. It has been ten years after all…”
The last ghost thus appeased for another month, he stood quietly as the hours passed by before leaving and heading to his empty apartment.
The market was cool as an autumn breeze blew through the crowded vendors and patrons. Orders to head to the capital as the Daimyo’s guard sat heavily inside Shisui’s police jacket. It would be the second tour of duty among the guard, yet this time he was ordered to be the commanding officer. His thumb brushed the faded wolf crest on the tanto holder as he adjusted it on his back. Faded with time, it brought forth no less potent memories than the day Kakashi had given it to him.
Every day that had passed in the last ten years, he thought of his genin teammate. How could he not? Her sacrifice on his behalf allowed him to stop the impending coup d’etat last year. The years that they had spent together were the foundation of his skills. Skills that he later used to become jounin within two years after her death.
Scrubbing a rough hand over his face, he shook his head. The melancholy would not subside in Konoha. Everywhere he turned his lost comrade was there. He blamed the mangekyo and the perfect crystal-clear memory of leaving her bleeding to death on a riverbank. She was in the eggplants at the market stall, in the lightning that split the sky during the summer rains, in the silver hair of the woman walking toward him with her eyes on the road.
He stopped, his jaw almost dropping. The resemblance this woman had to Kakashi was uncanny. Chakra flooded his eyes before he knew it. Silver threads of lightning chakra surrounded her as she walked through the market with loping strides. Thick curly silver hair threatened to escape the confines of a violet ribbon.
‘Mina?’ he asked himself, shaking his head again to clear his mind. ‘No way. Mina’s dead, you fool. Dead for ten years.’
The sleeve of her kimono brushed against him as she walked past and he reached out with his chakra. Without a doubt in his mind, he could feel the familiarity of ozone and the cold edge of electricity. Accidentally pushed by one of the patrons, her shoulder collided with his chest before she could right herself.
“Forgive me, officer,” she said softly. His heart pounded in his chest as her deep stormy eyes met his.
“Mina?” he asked, putting his hand around her bicep and stopping her from continuing.
“I’m sorry, have we met?” Her head cocked to the side. Her voice was quiet, introspective with the slightest husk to it. She backed away slightly when the tomoe in his eyes started to spin. Pulling her arm against his grasp, the corners of her lips creased when he didn’t let go. “Please release me.”
There was a slight beg in her voice that belonged more to a civilian than a self-respecting kunoichi. He pulled his hand back as though he had been burned. A wrinkle in the indigo silk of her sleeve remained where he had grasped her.
Her hand reached up and held her arm before she tried to pivot and walk around him.
“Wait,” he ordered and she turned around. “You look like someone I knew a long time ago. I was wondering if maybe you’re related. My name is Uchiha Shisui. Yours?”
“Mina, apprentice to Ueda-shishou, the kimono master of Lightning Country. Good day,” she bid before swiftly walking away.
He flash-stepped in front of her, halting her escape. “No, see, you look a lot like my senpai,
Hatake
Kakashi.”
‘Yeah, I may be crazy, but I have no doubt this is Hatake Kaminari,’ he thought. His hands seemed to move on their own when he reached out and grabbed hold of her.
She backed up a step, fear started to sink in when he gripped her elbows. “Uchiha-san, please, you’re drawing a crowd with your actions.”
Customers had halted their purchases and were now staring at them. Trying to pull back from his iron grip, she gasped when scarlet took over the black of his eyes again. Her hands shook uncontrollably as she placed them on his forearms, trying to break free.
“You don’t remember me? At all?” he asked. The uncertainty in his face hardened into resolve when she fearfully shook her head.
Pain blistered along the scar on her scalp as a new memory tried to edge its way out of the past and she cried out. “Please let me go,” she whispered.
The crowds seemed like they were pushing in. The strength in his grip was overbearing as she tried to fight against him. Instead of releasing her, he pulled her into his chest. In the span of one dizzying moment, the colors around her swirled. Before she knew what was happening, they stood in front of a large red door with a brass handle.
Releasing her to a nearby chair, Shisui walked up briskly and spoke in hushed tones to the man at the door. “Hatake Kaminari has been taken into custody as a presumed missing-nin from Konoha.”
Genma’s eyes widened at the sight of the young woman sitting quietly in the waiting area. The sleeves of her kimono didn’t hide the fact that she was rubbing her hands together nervously. A senbon fell from his mouth that he neatly caught before it could hit the ground.
“Bullshit,” he said yet still put his hand on the Hokage’s office door.
Shisui shook his head. “I’m serious. That’s Kaminari. Same chakra, shy personality, goes by ‘Mina.’”
With a nod, Genma opened the door and entered. A few moments passed before Shisui lifted Mina from the chair and began to drag her into the room. All fight had left her body as her feet moved along with him. His heart broke as her stormy and roiling lightning chakra was that quickly subdued.
‘Come on. Fight back, Mina. Remember,’
he begged in his mind. He reached out to brush against her chakra again only for her to gasp in pain and hold a hand to her head.
‘Fight me. Please. Fight me. Fight somebody.’
“That is enough, Shisui-kun. Thank you,” Hiruzen said, rising from his desk. “I hear you have apprehended Hatake Kaminari as a missing-nin?”
Mina’s mouth dropped open in shock and she slowly backed away to the nearest wall. A hand landed heavily on her shoulder. The kunai that appeared against her neck from a porcelain masked guard was a bald threat. She trembled uncontrollably against the cloaked figure.
“Yes, Hokage-sama,” Shisui replied, bowing slightly.
“Hokage-sama, I really must protest,” Mina squeaked as the kunai against her relaxed slightly. “I am a simple kimono merchant here on business with the Hyuuga clan. Earlier, your shinobi made a spectacle in the street and claimed I resembled his colleague.”
The Hokage steepled his hands in front of him before blowing out smoke from his pipe. “That is not a kunoichi,” he gently reprimanded Shisui, pointing with his pipe. “Release her, Iwashi. Shisui-kun says that you are his genin teammate who was killed in action ten years ago. Hatake Kaminari. I must say, you bear a striking resemblance to her brother, Hatake Kakashi. Perhaps we should bring him in as well”
Shisui looked behind him at the trembling woman who was near tears, dark grey eyes were wide and the delicate features of her face went white in fear.
“Hokage-sama, with all due respect, I must insist that this is my genin teammate Hatake Kaminari.”
“Why not bring Kakashi in here?” Hiruzen said lightly, pointing at another guard in the room who instantly disappeared. “Just a few moments, dear, I’m sure we will have this all straightened out.”
There was a slight nod as Mina stood rooted to her spot. Moments later, a shinobi with short grey hair and a masked face appeared at the window and stopped short when he saw the young kimono maker’s face. His uncovered eye went round and his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
“Kaminari?” The copy-cat ninja said breathlessly to the ghost in front of him. “Oh kami. Mina?”
He flickered and in an instant, had the civilian in his arms in a tight embrace with tears running down his cheeks. Her head nestled below his chin and he shook as he tried to control the swell of emotions. He rubbed the ends of her hair between his finger and thumb and let himself be enveloped in her once-familiar smell. Her chakra reached out to his, setting loose a torrent of emotions inside both of them.
His heart broke further when he realized the small hands on his chest were trying to push him away, not pull him in.
“I’m sorry, Shinobi-san. I don’t know who you are.” Mina brokenly whispered as the strange man put his arms on her shoulders to look at her as though she were crazy. Fear, sorrow, and inexplicable grief surged through her, urging her to bolt. His smell was too familiar, too much like a dream, like home. She backed up further with the pain increasing in the back of her head.
Wiping the tears from his eyes, the man in front of her carefully cleared the emotions from his face, sinking behind a cultivated mask. Raw pain swam through his eyes, unfiltered and unchecked before receding. Papers were shuffled from behind the man who kept a constant hand on her shoulder.
“Ah, here it is, thank you, Genma,” the Hokage started. “Mina-san, I understand that you don’t recognize the two in front of you. I must, however, ask that you stay in the village and provide a DNA test to prove that you are not, in fact, Hatake Kaminari. We take accusations of our shinobi going AWOL quite seriously.
“Based on the mission report that was submitted ten years ago by Uchiha Shisui, genin Hatake Kaminari was killed in action due to blood loss from severe abdominal wounds. According to this report, Kaminari had jumped in front of Shisui to block a sword strike from an Iwa jounin after sustaining a moderate head wound earlier in the day.” The slight tension in the wrinkles around the Hokage’s mouth belied his patient tone.
The warm hands that had been on her shoulders went slack and she took the opportunity to back away. Mina shook her head fervently as she inched her way to the door before opening it and running out of the building with her hand to her head.
“No pursuit,” the Hokage ordered. “Shisui inform the medical department that genetic testing is in order.”
Shisui bowed slightly, his eyes rimmed with unshed tears. “By your leave, Hokage-sama.”
“You’re dismissed, Kakashi.” Kakashi nodded numbly and flickered away.
His apartment walls closed in on him as he dropped to his knees on the floor. His sister was alive. Alive the whole time. For ten years, gods knew what happened to her. Her heart was still beating in her chest. Her eyes were still reflected in his own as she didn’t recognize her own kin. Or her teammate, or anyone else in Konoha. How long had he left her alone? He cried out in agony and banged a fist on the floor. For all his talk about not abandoning a comrade, he had inadvertently abandoned his own flesh and blood for a decade.
“Fuck!” he screamed, his voice echoing off the apartment walls as he mourned the last ten years he missed from her life. He exhaled forcefully when the tears stopped rolling down his cheeks and removed the damp mask from his face. Biting his thumb, he slapped his hand on the floor and summoned Pakkun.
The pug’s eyes widened in astonishment after Kakashi relayed the message, a deep growl forming in his throat before he tempered it.
“You found Mina?? Do you know how big this is? Bisuke and Uhei saw her die! They
SAW her die before her
dead
body ran out of chakra. This is no small favor, Kakashi. You know that!”
“Maa, I know. She’s lost all memory, it appears. Kaminari doesn’t know anyone. I’m halfway hoping that she might remember her own summons, Bisuke and Uhei. She might not remember her brother or her teammate, but maybe the ninken will be different. Blood contracts and all of that.”
“No, they can’t do that. Not until we know with one hundred percent certainty can you let them even go near that girl or scent her. It could drive them insane.”
Growling under his breath one last time, Pakkun walked off to find the scene that had never been forgotten. He returned a while later and reported that she was lodged at the Old Oak Hotel. It was already twilight and if she had indeed forgotten all of her shinobi training, it would not be safe for her to walk the streets. As much as he wanted to see her again, he waited until the next day and sent Pakkun out again.
Mina walked briskly towards her hotel room near the Hyuuga clan compound. It just wasn’t possible that she was from a shinobi family--had been a shinobi herself. Furthermore, it wasn’t possible that she could have forgotten them. She opened the solid door to her room and swiftly locked it. Double checking the window locks and the closet space for any sign of a shinobi break in. All she wanted was to be alone. To go home, bury herself in the pile of blankets on the bed and hide in the dark room.
A short rap sounded on the door and she moaned as she got up from the hotel bed to answer it.
“Mina, apprentice kimono maker?” the voice came from the other side of the door. “I’m a medic from Konoha general hospital. The Hokage of Konoha has ordered me to take a DNA sample for testing.”
After unbolting the locks, Mina cracked the door open. The medic was small, with brunette hair and a nondescript appearance. She smiled at Mina sympathetically as the door opened wider.
“Shouldn’t this be done in the hospital?” Mina asked quietly, letting in the medic-nin.
“Ah, usually. Well...usually we reserve this test for civilian mothers of suspected clan children. Ones that try to leave with kekkei genkei. We rarely use it on adults, but it does happen. The Hokage ordered me to come here out of respect to Hatake-san.”
Mina nodded, keeping an even expression. Not only was the man who had called her ‘sister’ a shinobi, but apparently he was a well-respected one. The test went by quickly and the medic quickly left. Two hours later, a messenger slipped a paper underneath the hotel room door. The DNA test confirmed that she was Kaminari Hatake. Whoever she was. Her dreams were plagued by nightmares of a life long forgotten.
The next morning was not much better as she squinted against the light filtering through the curtains. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyelids and lay back down. This was not happening. It wasn’t like she had been trying to hide. Her master was fairly well-known, and it wasn’t a secret that she was his apprentice. Her irritation at the situation grew until she could almost see red with anger. They acted like they cared when they had never even looked! She was right there! She had been there the entire time! All of their love would not replace the fact
they
abandoned her.
Cold water flowed from the tap and Mina put a washcloth underneath it. Wringing it out, she refolded it and laid it across her closed eyelids. She knew that man. The man with the haunted face that appeared in the Hokage’s office. His face was reflected in her own and she saw it every single day. Even if only a portion of it was visible. This was that boy. The one from her dreams. The one that called to her in soft tones.
As for the other man, she had seen those brown curls before. The soft dark eyes that stared at her in fear. Not fear towards her, but because of her. In her mind, if she thought back hard enough a wavy vision of him as a child standing over her, pressing gauze against her abdomen appeared.
“You’re going to be fine, Mina. I promised your brother you’ll come home. You’re going to be fine. Just hang on, okay. Just tell me what to do. How do I fix you?”
“Shisui. Let go. The Iwa… they’ll come back around. Bisuke, make sure they make it out.”
“Mina! Tell me what to do!”
A canine voice intervened from the warm spot on the left of her body. “Boss?” A wet tongue licked her fingers at the edge of her gloves and she rested her hand in the soft fur.
The eight-year-old boy wiped the blood flowing from his eyes and sniffled. “I can’t. I can’t just leave you here to die.”
“‘It’s okay. Let go... Take them…” The weight of her hitai-ate was lifted off her forehead and the tanto in her hand was now in Shisui’s. “Go…” Her breathing slowed and she heard the male wail against her soaked chest. His hands folded into fists before he got up. The last thing she heard before completely losing consciousness were his retreating footsteps.
Mina put pressure on the cold compress. The vision passed and she felt like she could breathe again. There was a scratch at the door and she left her chair to answer it.
“Can I help you?” she asked, blinking against the harsh midday sun.
“He was right,” the small pug in front of her said in shock. “Kaminari Hatake?”
“You’re the third person that’s asked me that today. It’s just Mina. Can I offer you water, ninken-san?”
“You don’t recognize me either, do you?”
Mina sighed in irritation. “No. I don’t recognize any of you.”
“Mina, I know this is difficult for you to understand,” he started gently. “Will you at least take a chance and follow me?”
She looked at the small pug skeptically.
“Please? I’ll let you pet my paws. They’re very soft,” he tried to entice.
She rubbed small circles against her forehead with the heel of her hand. Adjusting the folds of silk covering her legs, she blinked as she stepped out into the daylight behind the small dog.
The cup of tea in Kakashi’s hand shook as he exhaled briskly. Mina was alive and home. Alive. And whole. The last time he had seen her was when she waved goodbye to him at the village gates. Thick gray hair braided down her back and pushed over her shoulder. The baby fat was rosy on her cheeks as she grinned at him. He could almost feel the leather of her tanto scabbard underneath his fingers when he tightened it. Or the warmth of her lips against his mask as she said ‘Don’t worry nii-san, it’s a simple courier mission.’
Kakashi clenched his hands into fists to stop their shaking, refusing to fall apart in such a public place.
Pictures were spread on the table in front of him. Still-frames of their childhood on display. Whenever the memories interrupted his day, he wanted to reach back into the past and shake himself. ‘Hold her! Hug her one last time! Tell her that she means more to you than being a shinobi! Go with them!’ The last mission on that fateful day was their squad’s first solo mission. Her sensei, Tsume Inuzuka and her partner, Kuromaru, were otherwise engaged in a B-rank along the border of the Land of Rice. The Hokage had thought nothing of sending two prodigal genin along on a C-rank by themselves. It wasn’t possible that he could’ve known he was sending them into an ambush.
A male cleared his throat as he stopped in front of Kakashi’s patio table. “You uh, wanted me here?”
“Take a seat, Shisui. I asked Pakkun to find her.”
Shisui’s eyes turned dewy and he quickly looked towards the rooftops. He didn’t know what he was expecting. An silver-haired eight-year-old with a penchant for mischief bounding across the skyline? That’s not who they got back.
“Why not Bisuke or Uhei?”
“I didn’t want to risk shocking them… Our family’s contract is quite strong. It could be overwhelming just for them to scent her right now. Pakkun was the better choice.”
The eighteen-year-old exhaled briskly and pulled out the chair opposite of Kakashi. “I remember this one,” he said, picking up Mina’s copy of the old team picture. His own had long been locked away in his nightstand. Tsume stood behind the three genin, Mina had been in the middle, Isamu and himself on the right and left. Not two months after it was taken, Isamu had died. One year after that, Mina had followed. Or so he had thought.
“I didn’t realize you took a picture of us?” he pointed to a photo of him sparring with Mina. They both faced each other, training bokkens raised.
Kakashi barked out a laugh. “Photography has always been a hobby of mine. I started when I was eleven, I think Mina was around four, maybe five? Here, this one is my favorite.”
A small girl with electrified silver hair had a wild grin on her face as blue electricity sprung up into a large cube in front of her.
“She named it lightning prison. It wasn’t effective as a weapon, more for show, anyway. There wasn’t enough current in the electricity to actually harm anyone.”
“You know she used it in the field. It’s actually what angered the Iwa… on that day. She turned it into a weapon. Used all of her chakra for it too…”
The twenty-five year old leaned back and crossed his arms. “I see.”
Soft steps approached Kakashi’s apartment door and the two men stiffened.
Mina folded her hands in her sleeves as she stood impatiently outside of the chipped green door. There was no alternative than to accept that what they were telling her was true. The mounting evidence and returning memories left no doubt.
The door opened and the masked man from yesterday smoothed a hand through his thick silver hair. “Welcome back home… Mina,” he offered gently.
She carefully refrained from sighing in irritation as she briskly walked in. “Thank you, Hatake-san. However, I will still be staying in the hotel until everything is finalized. I plan on leaving this village once my business is concluded, I can’t leave my master alone for too long.”
“I understand. However, that will be up to the Hokage’s discretion, as to whether or not you will be able to leave the village at all.” Mina jerked back slightly in surprise. “Come sit down, and we’ll talk about what all this means.”
She stopped short when she saw Shisui standing beside an empty chair. Shisui pulled it out and offered it to her. Swallowing hard, she took his offer and was pleasantly surprised when he pushed the chair back in.
“Thank you, Uchiha-san.”
Kakashi grabbed the chair across from her and sat down. “I know you have questions. I have a couple myself. And I think that Shisui does as well. He wanted to be here for this, anyway. In Konoha, a genin team is a family for life. He was your teammate.” His single eye looked closely for any hint of memory. All he could find was a carefully blank face, mirroring his own. What he sensed, however, was a different story. Underneath this carefully cultivated mask was a raging hurricane. Unrestrained lightning chakra roiled within her, as it always had when she was angry.
“Your name is Kakashi? How old are you? And well, how old am I, for that matter?”
A paper was pushed towards her,
Konoha Certificate of Birth
Kaminari Hatake.
Born to Yua Hatake and Sakumo Hatake.
8 August, 34
Mina pushed it back across the table. A photograph was slid towards her. A middle-aged man with a long silver ponytail sat beside a woman with thick, curly brown hair. In the woman’s arms was a pink bundle, to her left was a small boy with gray hair and a now familiar black mask.
Kakashi pointed towards the adults in the picture, “Our mother, Yua; our father… Sakumo.”
A flash of a memory pressed its way through her mind and a groan accidentally passed Mina’s lips. The man in the photograph was standing in front of her, holding a bowl of oatmeal in one hand, and a scroll in another. He placed the bowl on the table in front of her. Small fingers reached out for the spoon, dragging the bowl off the table. A small gasp, and the bowl appeared in his large hands, saved by his quick reflexes. Gloved fingers ruffled her hair and promptly went back to the scroll.
Shisui ran a hand through his hair before crossing his arms over his chest. He shot Kakashi a knowing look through reddened eyes and tapped his head with a finger. Kakashi nodded back. Her memory was returning with proximity to her brother’s chakra.
“When you were born, you electrocuted tou-san when he held you for the first time. It’s rare, but it does sometimes happen in clan children that their chakra nature reveals itself shortly after birth. You still had kaa-san’s chakra running through you. It faded after a couple days.”
Mina nodded numbly and stared at her hands. As far as she knew, she’d never been able to manipulate any sort of element. Kakashi’s gloved hand settled on hers and he squeezed gently when she tried to jerk out of his hold.
“We’ll figure this out, Mina. We’re here for you.”
Shisui reached a hand hesitantly across the table before settling it on her free hand.
“You’re my… teammate. I’m here for the long haul.” Shisui gave her a guarded smile before releasing her and placing his hand back in his own lap.