Title: Love (who art a light to guide)
Author: Timothy Wren
Fandom: Naruto
Relationship: Hatake Kakashi/Momochi Zabuza,
Genre: Anime, Romance, Sentinel/Guide
Warnings: Sentinel/Guides are known, canon-typical violence, canon-typical references to ANBU, non-graphic child murder, Zabuza’s canon backstory (of child murder, as a child)
Word Count: 3,815 (complete)
Summary: The only reason Hatake Kakashi’s page in the bingo book read “kill on sight” instead of “flee on sight” was because it was fucking useless to flee from a half-feral Sentinel.
There’s just one problem.
Notes: This is my other submission for KakaZabu Week 2018. I made a banner for it, then remembered I’d previously made a little collage for it. Fuck it, I’ll post both. Herein, Sentinels and Guides are known. Kakashi has been pretending to be a Sentinel his entire life, but he’s a Guide.
The only reason Hatake Kakashi’s page in the bingo book read “kill on sight” instead of “flee on sight” was because it was fucking useless to flee from a half-feral Sentinel. The major villages would rather their shinobi fight and die with the laughingly small, if nonzero, chance of getting in a lucky hit.
But Kakashi was never going to zone during a mission, no matter how strong a scent, how irritating a poison to his skin. It wasn’t that he was a genius prodigy who could dial down his senses to absolute zero, though ANBU put recruits through horrible tests to make sure it was possible, nor that even mundane shinobi with Inuzuka and Hatake levels of enhanced senses were taught chakra tricks to fake it.
His reputation as an online Sentinel who had gone unbonded for eighteen years did him no favors. It painted him as dangerous, even more so than normal shinobi; every dark look, every threat said with a smile, was evidence not of a trained soldier, an elite killer among elite killers, but a man who is so close to the ledge that he’s already falling; a fuse burned so short that it’s invisible to the naked eye and all you can do is wait in the prolonged moment before the inevitable explosion.
Getting a Genin team was a surprise. Getting a Genin team had been a big fucking surprise, even knowing that the council had been exerting pressure on Sarutobi for years to give him one, as evidenced by the dozen hopeful children he’d failed over the years. The pressure only increased as the seasons passed, as they saw the clock ticking down and got more and more desperate to have him pass on his many legacies.
No one had been more surprised and horrified than Kakashi, to hear he passed Team 7.
He had never expected a Genin team. It came out of left field. It came out of Kumo, he was so shocked, even knowing who the prospective children were.
As unpleasant and horrific surprises went, Kakashi had never expected worse. Could not, in fact, imagine worse, even as it stared down at him from across a bridge.
It came out of space, how shocked for this Kakashi was.
Zabuza Momochi was twenty meters away in all his missing-nin glory, for all the title meant– or didn’t mean– coming from Kiri. A living sword was thrown over his shoulders, catching the light through the faint mist from the river below, one of the named blades, watered with blood, that few escaped from.
Kakashi had a similar sword, for all that it was cold and dead, strapped across his back. He couldn’t use it in ANBU; too distinctive, for all that this generation certainly had reason to know its name.
Momochi wore the wrappings all seasoned shinobi wore, as opposed to dead shinobi who never lived long enough to regret it. He wasn’t wearing sleeves but they coiled around his neck, his jaw. They tapered his pants. White guards protected his shins and wrists. The all black of his fatigues were obviously shinobi-grade material, designed to wick away all trace of scent, let him kill from the shadows– or in this case, the mist.
Kakashi was a Hatake, within fifty meters, and still couldn’t smell him.
He didn’t need to. He wasn’t a Sentinel.
“Guide.” Zabuza’s voice rang out, clear and as final as a ringing bell with just one syllable. The better part of two decades and the first one to figure it out. Minato had looked right at him and never realized it.
“Sentinel.” Kakashi didn’t bother to raise his voice. It carried across the distance between them.
A moment ago he’d been worried about his students.
Kakashi was an elite; ANBU general; one of the best in the village and a shinobi known through all the nations. He had the kind of laser focus, multitasking skills and ability to prioritize on a mission above all else, that people literally worked all their lives to train, and he’d had it since he was six years old.
Still, he was only vaguely aware of his kids behind him.
They were guarding some client, unimportant. Probably.
He wasn’t worried about them.
Sentinels didn’t– couldn’t– kill kids unless they were one. Kakashi had supposedly lost that ability at the onslaught of puberty. That’s certainly what he told his superiors.
His Sentinel wouldn’t hurt Kakashi’s children, not in a million years. Funny; Kakashi’s primary shield was already shifting, changing. It stretched across the space between them like light, invisible and unstoppable and started folding around Zabuza’s senses– purely on its own, the kind of instinctive thing that could never be taught.
Maintaining the primary shield had been a literal life saving measure for him, something he’d clung to and poured every scrap of focus and determination, energy and snarling defiance into, from a very young age. Feeling it not leave him, but stretch and settle into Zabuza’s skin felt– well. Honestly it felt like that’s what he’d built it for in the first place, like two decades clawing for safety and separation from the minds around him was not for himself, but a barrier built up snarling at god and the world for the sole purpose of protecting his Sentinel.
Kakashi moved forward with absent steps, silent as the killing technique perfected, in part, by the man in front of him.
“Sentinel.” Kakashi repeated, unable to call up the drawl of earlier, the hint of raised eyebrow. This time it was as even a tone as he could make it; his normal voice, cracked open.
“Guide.” Zabuza breathed, wild-eyed, a raw scrape of sound. His breathing was wrecked.
His expression crumpled.
If Kakashi had been presumed on the knife’s edge of crazy/unstable for the last eighteen years, Zabuza was the real thing. The horror story told in the dark, the Sentinel who went so feral he attacked the tribe. Killed children (they always forget that he was one).
His biceps rippled and the enormous blade slipped into the wood like it wasn’t even there. Some part of Kakashi winced to see the gorgeous edge treated like that– but the sword was alive. Feed it enough blood and it could grow to repair any damage.
Zabuza reached out with shaking hands and let his fingertips hover just shy of touching Kakashi’s cheeks. Kakashi stayed still for him, though he doubted he could move if he tried. Emotion clawed at his throat from the inside. He couldn’t even swallow.
Even now his primary shield was expanding, like lungs stretched around a breath of fresh air; where before it was a curving, impenetrable diamond pressed tight around his mental scape, constantly held tight and hammered strong by his will, now there was room. His shield turned into golden light and the pressure abated, his thoughts filling out to stretch the space that remained.
He would have panicked.
He would have, but there was something more, slipping in with ease right through all his defenses. Zabuza was inside his shields; they protected him; he could do whatever he wanted from this side of the defenses.
Fingertips touched his cheek like a brand.
Mist settled in the space between shield and shielded, braided like cross-hatched diamond rope. Kakashi’s thoughts could and did slide past it, only to retreat back, then dart out again. He knew without trying that it was more flexible, more effective than the shield he’d strived his whole life clawing together out of instinct to protect his mind. He wouldn’t have to lift it to get a read on someone; he could read them through it and no one else could chase him back through the net. It would close like razor wire around anyone else’s probe. Better, still, he didn’t have to concentrate to maintain it; it sprung into being all on its own.
His own shield, now transformed beyond the net of mist, protected both of them. It looked like literal sunshine to his third eye, but– it was the color of Kushina’s chakra chains. There were no ‘holes’ in it, despite the thinness. It glowed.
Kakashi let both fade from his vision to focus on the Sentinel. His Sentinel.
“You’re making a buffer for my senses.” Zabuza said, blinking. It wasn’t a question. He sounded like it was a punch to the gut.
“Mmm.” Kakashi disagreed. “Not a buffer so much as a baseline, I think. They won’t be able to go beyond your control. It’ll be easier to maintain a normal ‘setting’, so to speak, and in turn control how far you’re dialed up or down from it.”
“And you won’t be overwhelmed by mental shit anymore. Not ever.” The low intensity to the words made him blink. He snorted.
“I’m never overwhelmed by my Guide gifts.” The words themselves felt dangerous, an acknowledgement.
Unexpectedly, Zabuza barked out a laugh.
“Yeah, because you kept them locked up as much as possible.” A small bear– no, actually, a wolf-toothed wolverine appeared next to him, snarling in challenge. Zabuza smirked.
Kakashi felt about like adamantine chains had been lifted from his psyche; and he supposed, in a way, they had. Funny; adrenaline pressed his heart fast and he was unable to hear further than their little bubble, yet he couldn’t worry about it.
As ridiculous as it was, he felt safe. He allowed himself to truly relax for the first time in actual years.
A great white wolf shimmered into being near his hip, lips bared to reveal teeth the size of shuriken points.
“Holy fuck, Hatake!” Zabuza actually moved to take a step back before he caught himself, putting his foot right back where it was. He hadn’t moved far enough to remove his hand from Kakashi’s skin.
Kakashi smiled at him.
“Problem?”
“Fucking — no, there is not a problem. I just didn’t wake up this morning expecting to be the Sentinel Prime of– what, Fire Country?” He bitched, lips twisting in a sneer. He made no move to back away.
“Mm.” Kakashi hummed, eyes dancing. “How many of your senses have you imprinted?”
“Hearing.” Zabuza said immediately, voice ragged. “I think I could hear your heartbeat from across the continent if I tried.”
Aha.
“I know when I’m being lied to– even if it’s another Guide. Even if it’s a Sentinel. Even if it’s an Alpha Sentinel.” Kakashi said evenly. Zabuza cursed under his breath, but didn’t take his eyes away.
“I’ve been online since I was eight years old and every single Sentinel, Guide, and shinobi I’ve ever met, including not one but two Hokage, have thought I was a Sentinel. Have been fooled into believing I’m a Sentinel.”
“It’s not just Konoha propaganda.” Zabuza realized, pupils dilating.
“Ah. Not as such. They genuinely believe this. I’ve given them no reasons not to.”
“Your shields…” Zabuza sighed. “You didn’t lock away your abilities at all. You just used them sparingly and put the rest of your power into maintaining the shield– every drop.”
Kakashi rolled his shoulders in a shrug, didn’t look away from intelligent brown eyes.
“I’m a Wolf Guide.” He cocked his head. “My empathy is so strong I can feel intentions with my shields all the way up and locked down tight. It’s part of why they saw a Sentinel when they looked at me. I can’t be lied to, I can pick up emotions better than you could smell them, and with even a little effort I can slip past the shield and feel every mind within a mile of me.”
Even with maximum shielding, he radiated sex appeal in a way mundanes had no counter for. Luckily he was prickly enough no one really looked at him and thought of safe haven, but damned if any rescue he had ever performed didn’t have seasoned ANBU looking at him like the world was okay because he’d come for them. He didn’t leave men behind.
“Oh, goddamnit.” Zabuza said, but he was smiling. He leaned forward until he must be able to smell Kakashi’s breath, his skin, the sweat that his clothes hadn’t wicked away yet. “I mean. I guess you’re worth being–”
He couldn’t say it. Kakashi sighed.
“Alpha Sentinel Prime.” Kakashi finished for him.
“Of?” Zabuza didn’t blink.
“Alpha Sentinel Prime.” He repeated, and saw the moment Zabuza got it. “Because I’ve got good reason to believe I’m the strongest Guide alive, Sentinel.”
“Say it again.” Zabuza’s eyes darkened.
“Sentinel.” Kakashi repeated, catching on with some of that supposed genius.
Zabuza trailed his finger tips from cheek to cheek bone, then slowly along the edge of Kakashi’s jaw, taking the mask down with them. Down his neck. Trailed back up.
They both drew in breath a bit shallower.
“My Sentinel.”
The wolf lunged at the wolverine and they started wrestling, snapping– somewhat playfully– as either struggled for the high ground.
“My Guide.” Zabuza leaned forward and claimed his mouth in a searing kiss. It felt a little like being set on fire from the inside, and a lot like a talented man licking into his mouth with skill.
Kakashi’s fingers were buried in the loose wrappings at his shoulders and he ached. He also wanted to kill the people Zabuza had practiced with, shove steel into the flesh of anyone who had known this from him. The thought of someone else feeling this, feeling his Sentinel close up and invested — it made him homicidal.
He pressed closer, laying one hand on a bare shoulder, slipping the other into brown hair. Kakashi made the world even smaller, made it just them. He grounded his Sentinel in the here and now, in him.
Zabuza shuddered at the skin contact. Kakashi brought teeth into things, drug them across his bottom lip possessively. Zabuza groaned into the contact, claimed his lips again and again. Like he couldn’t get enough. Good.
“I could track your heartbeat over the entire world.” Zabuza pulled back to pant against his lips. “I hear you, I see you, I taste you. Wanna taste you all over.”
And yeah, that helped. Barely. Words in general sounded very far away to his ears.
He dragged his mouth away with a low noise and shoved his nose into Kakashi’s neck, inhaling sharply.
That helped more, though it did it via unignorable distraction.
The increased amount of skin contact made dangerous things happen to Kakashi. Reaching out took the barest whisper of thought. He didn’t have to open his shields any ; bonded Guides could reach from inside them to interact with the world mentally, a one-sided and impenetrable barrier provided by the Sentinel in the same way a Guide’s shield stood between their Sentinel and complete sensory overload, a buffer between them and the natural world.
He slipped into what his Sentinel felt without a single shred of resistance from Zabuza.
Zabuza imprinted smell from the sweat on his neck, the tang of skin, and Kakashi felt how he felt: wild, excited, and the same hole that Kakashi had cut through his chest, ragged around the edges, pulsing with pain and longing and a soul crushing loneliness. Kakashi had lived with that hurt for over half his life.
Today he learned that the hole was Zabuza-shaped and he could already feel the man would fit perfectly — with him, in him, socially and mentally and physically. He tried to get even closer, determined to fill it as soon as possible. Feeling Zabuza’s own emptiness was intolerable. Kakashi planned to crawl into his entire skin to make it stop.
Zabuza had similar ideas, pressing his forehead tight into Kakashi’s neck. He had his Guide on all sides. He panted there, inhaling scent but not tasting.
Impatience burned in both of them, barely quenchable. Frustration started in one and ended in the other.
“Once I put my mouth on you I don’t intend to stop.” Zabuza growled into skin, the tease of teeth. Kakashi got the flash of an image; himself, covered in bite marks and bruises. The inside of his thighs were a rainbow of worried flesh. Zabuza jerked his head back, brown eyes glued to Kakashi’s face like he couldn’t drink it in enough.
Need climbed up from his chest and into his mouth, arousal pooling low in his gut. Blood pumped through his veins louder than anything and it sounded like yes, yes, yes.
Guides couldn’t quite go feral, but he was pretty sure he would kill everyone in this country if he had to stop touching his Sentinel’s skin anytime soon. Rage nearly blinded him at the thought and he snarled, catching the hand Zabuza had on his neck and turning to sink his teeth into the meet of it.
Not a Sentinel, no, but his clan had never been known for their restraint.
“Mine.” Kakashi breathed, daring him to challenge. His own teeth were as sharp as Zabuza’s and they could play claiming each other all day, roll around in sweet smelling grass and scent-mark until–
“Mine.” Zabuza agreed, nipping with great care and also no particular care, it felt like, breaching skin until the sharp smell of blood punched the air in tiny amounts.
Kakashi pulled him closer to taste it on his teeth, groaned into that pretty mouth.
A quarter mile away, directly behind them but much too far beyond either bondmates’ notice, Naruto ran onto the scene and shouted, “Kakashi-sensei!”
Sakura watched with disbelief. Her blonde teammate’s arrival prodded her into finding her tongue.
“What are they doing?” She demanded.
It was the other ninja, the one who had challenged Sasuke to a fight before everyone’s attention had abruptly shifted, who moved first.
Naruto’s arrival and Sakura’s dismay seemed to shock the foreign nin out of it. The masked boy took a shaky step forward, reaching for senbon as he said, “Zabuza–”
And, amazingly, it was Sasuke who darted forward with a speed born of desperation and demanded:
“What are you doing ? You can’t interrupt a bonding!” His voice was a hiss, furious scandalized to even be saying it out loud.
Blonde and pink heads whipped around to stare at him while the masked nin’s head kept going back and forth from his grabbed kimono sleeve and Sasuke’s very pissed face, almost in disbelief.
Tazuna the bridge builder whistled long and low.
“Well, shit. I guess the bridge is getting built after all. Shame they couldn’t have done this before he slaughtered all the men, but hell, the people need work. We’ll get some volunteers easily enough.”
They all three stared at him.
Before anyone could come up with something conclusive to say, or come to action, a little brown pug trotted out of the thin mist between them and the couple still wrapped in each other.
“Change of plans, pups.” The dog spoke.
“You have a little konoha headband!” Naruto yelled.
“Idiot!” Sakura whopped him, like she hadn’t shouted in alarm. “He’s obviously a nindog.”
Sasuke eyed the masked boy suspiciously, but sighed at his teammates antics. He bent down so the animal wouldn’t have to strain its neck.
“I’m Sasuke.You are?” He said, respectfully. Nincats would sooner rip your face off than help you if you were rude to them, no matter who you were.
Doggy eyes appraised him.
“Pakkun. You’re alright.” He judged. Naruto scrambled to get to his knees, as well; Sakura glanced unsurely at the client she was guarding.
Finally she bowed over a bit, hands on her knees.
“Ninja are fucking crazy,” Tazuna the bridge-builder eyed his flask, tipped it upside down, and moaned when nothing came out.
“Team seven,” Pakkun barked. The kids looked up in trained attention. “Your orders are this: continue guarding the bridge builder. Today, Naruto’s clones will begin construction. Tomorrow, Sasuke will accompany Tazuna to recruit more labor while the other two watch the bridge. We don’t know what other tricks Gatou has up his sleeve, or what his move will be now that Momochi is no longer available to him.”
The three nodded sharply.
Haku startled badly. “Zabuza-sama? Is he–”
“Haku.” The pug interrupted, attention darting to him. “Your Sentinel has found his Guide. They’ll be going back to your cabin to bond.”
All four teens looked up at that, eyes going to the center of the bridge. They all had shocked reactions when they found their teachers missing.
Imperiously, Pakkun picked up a paw and set it down.
“Get to work, you lot. Sasuke, Sakura, go check the perimeter. Naruto, make some clones– not more than fifty. I’ll stay here with Haku and the client.”
Haku seemed too stunned to disagree.
Naruto scratched the back of his head idly.
“Um, okay. Oh! Would now be a good time to mention that the house was attacked?”
“Dobe!”
–
They chased each other through the small trees of Wave like the marriage hunts of old, playful and deadly serious at the same time; testing, teasing, with an overall goal in mind– some sort of cottage– but too wrapped up in each other to make it a straight shot.
Still, they arrived sooner rather than later. Jounin loupes ate up the miles. Zabuza had enough experience on the mainland to join him in the trees, though he clearly wasn’t comfortable there. Kakashi was only mildly hindered by the lack of convenient branches and towering canopies he was better used to.
It was definitely worth it to see Zabuza flipping through the air, moving seamlessly through the undergrowth, and weaving through the woods as easy as if he wasn’t carrying around two hundred pounds of metal strapped to his back.
The entire fucked up mission was worth it when they got close and Kakashi doubled back to ambush Zabuza, shoved him hard and fast into the bark of a sturdy enough tree, one of several that ringed a clearing, tiny cabin sat lofty in the middle. It was their bonding haven and Kakashi could sing.
They didn’t wait to get inside before thirsty hands peeled off layers, barely breaking kiss after kiss to strip ribbons and wrappings from perfect flushed skin, tasting and tasting in turn. It was Zabuza who imprinted his senses, the Sentinel urge strong in his fingers, but Kakashi gave as good as he got.
First touch, then smell. Hearing, soft words, fast heartbeats.
Their eyes drank their fill each.
And then? Zabuza lay out his Guide on the couch, tasting every inch as the last of the fabric slid out of the way.
They sank into each other’s senses as their minds opened wide, drowning in touch and taste and smell, Sentinel and Sharingan eyes remembering every frame of it.
Sensitive ears tracked every gasped breath, every sound as Zabuza’s lips memorized skin and sweat.
Later, far from sated, Kakashi made sure to return the favor.
He had pretty good hearing, too.
(He savored every sound).
