What would she have done if she’d known back then that it was the last time she’d see him?

Would she have stopped him?

“Miki, do you have a moment?”

Surprised, Miki dropped her katana from it’s ready position and spun to face the speaker. Upon recognizing the figure as her adoptive-brother, she nodded and turned back to Noriaki.

“I’ll leave it here, keep practicing, alright?”

The sweat soaked genin simply nodded, returning to the set of motions she’d been drilling into him. Satisfied, Miki turned back to Hayate as she tucked her katana back in her sheath.

“What is it?”

Hayate glanced past her at Noriaki then shook his head.

“Can we walk?”

More curious than before, Miki simply nodded and followed him away from the training grounds. As they walked, a breeze blew through the area, causing her to tense despite herself. Ever since the seal had been put in place, there had been moments when her form would start to turn to smoke without her permission. It was rare and she’d been careful not to be seen, but the fact that it was happening was impossible to forget. The breeze had suddenly become a fear of hers, she knew all too well the stories of what would happen if she wasn’t careful.

“There was an incident at the hospital not long after the end of the preliminaries,” Hayate said after the silence had continued for some time. “An attempted kidnapping of the Uchiha boy.”

“I didn’t hear anything about that,” Miki replied, her tone even, but her eyes serious.

“It was kept a secret.”

“Then why tell me?”

Hayate paused, bringing one hand up as he began to cough. She narrowed her eyes slightly, but simply waited for him to finish. Once again she was reminded to check and make sure his girlfriend was pestering him about taking his medication, seeing as she doubted he’d listen to her if she lectured him about it. When his coughing had calmed, he lowered his hand and shoved it into his pocket.

“I wouldn’t,” he commented slowly, his words obviously carefully chosen. “Except… I was tasked with following the would-be kidnapper while keeping myself hidden. The third decided that learning what is being planned was more important than taking him in just yet. When I was following him a short time ago, before he managed to throw me off… I saw him meet with one of your genin.”

She tensed.

“Which one?”

“The Asari girl.”

___________________________

When the news hit, she was struck numb.

If she’d talked to him longer instead of thanking him and telling him that she’d deal with it- would he have stayed longer? Would she have been able to prevent it? Perhaps she should have requested that he come to her apartment and have a meal before he’d continued on his way.

She should have done something. Anything to prevent the words that were coming out of the third’s mouth. If she hadn’t already been used to such a thing at a young age, her mind might have rejected the idea entirely.

Hayate was dead.

Miki’s thoughts went blank as various voices swirled in the air around her. The third’s announcement had stunned them all. She, however, couldn’t make sense of anything except those three simple words that kept repeating themselves in her mind.

Hayate was dead.

He’d been killed.

She’d spoke to him yesterday afternoon.

Hayate was dead.

“He was found by Kikyou castle this morning,” the third continued.

Her brother was found.

“Was it Orochimaru?”

She snapped to attention then, eyes wide. Only then did the obvious conclusion occur to her- that he might have done it. As Kakashi dismissed the idea, she could only grasp onto that one, single thought. Everything that had gone wrong recently, it was all after they’d arrived in the village. If only he’d never appeared again. Perhaps then…

Then she wouldn’t be sitting here wondering if there was anything she could have done.

Voices continued to swirl around her, but caught up in her own thoughts, she didn’t tune in until her name suddenly reached her ears. Startled, she raised her head to meet Kakashi’s eye, realizing that the shinobi in the room had already been dismissed, a majority of them gone within instants of the order. Kakashi’s single, visible eye was trained on her, the emotion in his face unreadable.

“Miki, can you stand?”

Hastily pulling herself to her feet, she dismissed his offered hand and turned her attention to the room. The one person she needed to see at the moment wasn’t there. Hayate’s girlfriend was already gone.

“I’m fine.”

Her voice sounded dull, the words unbelievable, even to her own ears. His eyes narrowed, Kakashi suddenly gripped her wrist, leading her towards the door. A muttered protest left her lips, but she didn’t fight him as he pulled her along. It wasn’t until they’d made it out of the building and to their usual meeting place on the small bridge over the river did he stop walking. She barely noticed.

“You’re not.”

Her legs shook, almost giving out beneath her as the words seemed to drive through her, leaving an aching, empty pain in her chest.

Hayate was dead.

He wouldn’t tease her anymore. She couldn’t get mad at him for missing his medicine anymore. He wouldn't pull her aside to practice together. He wouldn’t buy her books and warn her not to show their mother. He wouldn’t show up late to family dinners with a lame excuse that never worked. He wouldn’t give sputtered reasons why he couldn’t introduce his girl to their parents just yet.

He was dead.

Killed.

Her eyes burned, but no tears fell. She wouldn’t cry.

Miki never cried.

She hadn’t cried when she was being experimented on and injected with everything under the sun. She hadn’t cried when her sensei had died, when Hisoka had been blinded in the name of teaching her a lesson.

She wouldn’t cry now. She wasn’t even sure if she knew how to let the tears fall.

Suddenly, she found herself pulled up against something hard. She blinked, uncomprehending the movement until she cocked her head up, looking into Kakashi’s face. Another long moment passed before she began to tremble in his arms.

“Kakashi…”

Her word was whispered, as if she rose her voice something would break. She wasn’t sure what it was, although the idea fluttered through her mind that it might be her.

Her brother was dead.

Kakashi didn’t say anything at first, simply held his arms around her as she buried her face in his chest instead of pushing him away as she knew she should. Weak moments weren’t to be seen. Those were supposed to be had in secret, where there was no one to witness them. She’d had that drilled into her when she was younger- the two years that Yukio had been with her had taught her that. He’d laughed if she’d broke before him.

Any other time she would have been happy to be where she was. At the moment, she wished to be anywhere else.

Weakness was to be hidden.

Yet why was she letting him hold her?

The sun beat down on them, the silence in the air deafening. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. She was frozen in place as her body shook on its own accord while her mind continued to try and make sense of it all. It berated her for being weak and falling so low after that single piece of news.

“You can cry.”

Miki stiffened, those words breaking through. A small shake of her head sent her hair scattering in all directions, for once not pulled back in her usual braid. How suiting, a rather cruel part of her mind decided. It was suiting that on the day one of the people who helped make her who she was died, she’d left her hair down as she’d done before she’d come to Konoha. The thought stung, sending a new wave of that piercing, unidentifiable pain through her. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that could block it all out.

The action displaced a single tear, causing it to slip down her cheek, leaving a path in its wake for others to follow. They didn’t, however, her body simply trembling harder than before with the force it took to hold in the emotions she wasn’t willing to let go.

He was dead.

“Miki.”

The word was quiet, but firm. A hand pulled from behind her back and snuck under her chin, tugging her face up in his direction. A soft protest started, then died on her lips as her eyes fluttered open to meet his. Kakashi’s expression dared her to drop her gaze again, to test what might happen if she did. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, his hand continuing to hold her chin in place.

“Cry.”

She broke.

The soft spoken order suddenly sent tears streaming down her cheeks, following the path the first tear had made and even further. A quiet, broken noise bubbled from her throat as stared up at him, all of the suppressed energy seeming to flood out of her limbs. In that moment, the only thing holding her up was his other hand settled at the small of her back.

He simply watched, his expression never wavering, never becoming easier to read.

After a moment, he brushed away a few of the tears with his thumb, her cheek flushing red beneath his touch, just as it would have done if she’d raised her hands and rubbed the tears away herself. His thumb stilled, their eyes still locked.

A moment passed.

Then another, neither one willing to move.

Slowly, he released her chin and dropped his hand. A ragged breath escaped her lips, as if held in until that moment. Her gaze dropped, her head burying itself in his chest as he simply tucked his hand back in place around her. Miki’s body shook with her quiet cries, but a single word never left her lips.

There was nothing to be said.

Her brother was dead… there wasn’t anything that could change that.

A/N: Extremely short chapter... but I think anything else would have disturbed the feels. *sadistic smile* Oh how I love breaking characters. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!