open

[battlefieldbrat]

Who: kakashi and YOU???
Where: kakashi's camp in the woods
What: this is primarily for people who knew kakashi in the au to catch up with him. if you interacted with him positively in any way during the au you can assume your character knows where to find him.
Warnings: none that i know of

[kakashi's "hideout" in the woods looks the same as ever, blankets piled up in a sleeping area and a pot hanging over the remains of a campfire. rather than tending the fire, however, kakashi can be found fussing over the blankets, tearing down the colorful scarves that were previously used to decorate the surrounding trees, or just outside the camp pondering the childish traps he had set.

as for his appearance, it is mostly the same, though now a black mask covers the lower half of his face and a blue band with a metal plate sewn into it adorns his forehead. on the metal plate is a familiar symbol of a spiraling leaf, known to anyone who knows kakashi's former penchant for tagging buildings in town.]

Comments

[fieldtrip]

[ To Toph, of course, the mask and headband make no difference. She wakes up out in the woods as well, and what's funny is that her returning memories don't mark it out as odd. Her time traveling with the Gaang on Appa are some of her fondest memories, and it included a lot of camping out and roughing it.

If anything, as the rest of her memories filter back in, as she groggily pushes herself up on her hands, this part seems more familiar than ever.

It takes a bit to feel like things are back in order, mentally, or at least approaching it. Toph groans and rubs her head. ] What the heck was that? [ she wonders aloud, confusion clearing one wisp at a time. ]

Uh... Kakashi, are you there?

[ Shouldn't she be able to feel him if he is, immediately, anywhere within a one mile radius? But it's still instinct to just call out and ask. ]

[battlefieldbrat]

[kakashi has been up for a while, puttering around because being busy makes it easier to deal with the dual set of memories, somehow. he didn't wake toph - he always lets her sleep as long as she wants - but what does always mean? god, he hates this.]

So you're finally awake.

[he sounds neutral, maybe a little cautious. is he going crazy, will he be expected to play the big brother for someone who can't remember their real past?]

Uh, how are you feeling?

[fieldtrip]

[ Toph would absolutely agree that being busy makes it easier to deal with something -- just about anything. She's about to come to that conclusion herself, once she can scape together enough coherent thoughts.

There's a short period of silence as Toph considers that question, taking stock. She climbs to her feet with a slowness that implies seriousness. ]

... Like I want to find whoever did this to us and let them know how I feel about it.

[ Whatever else is going on, she trusts herself absolutely and she trusts her own immediate interpretation of events. While Toph blind and dependent on others, re-learning her earthbending one painful step at a time, was at times a mess of emotions and often struggled with finer nuance, Toph fully herself is a master of precision and control. This situation won't be helped by shouting, so she doesn't.

Instead she proves to herself that she's who she thinks she is with a show of earthbending she'd never have been capable of yesterday: with a simple flick of her fingers, the layer of dirt coating her from living and sleeping out in the woods whisks off of her skin and clothes in one smooth stream and settles on the ground. ]

[battlefieldbrat]

[kakashi watches her from several feet away, feeling a sense of relief that toph remembers things properly, too. but also a sense of....loss? he pushes that stray thought aside, unsure how to deal with it.]

So you remember now, too. That's good. [he turns back to his current task, taking down the many colorful scarves that decorate the surrounding trees. honestly, what had he been thinking?] You think the whole town has changed?

[fieldtrip]

[ Meanwhile, Toph doesn't have any problem moving people into the "close friend" category, and for her, who's willingly left her family behind, that group practically is family. Kakashi is joining that category without a missed beat from Toph. Once someone's proven they care about her, they get her loyalty, and she doesn't need to announce it to the world.

Though she will if she needs to. ]

Good question. How about we go find out? [ she suggests. ] I want to make sure my bending's back on all the way.

[ That is priority number one for sure. ]

[battlefieldbrat]

Ah -

[it shouldn't take him by surprise that she wants him to come along. they do practically everything together. and actually, didn't they do a lot of things together before the whole memory disaster too? it takes kakashi a few seconds to gather himself.]

Yeah, sure. You lead the way.

[fieldtrip]

[ Toph is used to doing everything with Kakashi and used to doing everything with her friends, and in that sense both sets of memories are in total agreement.

She reaches out to grab him by the arm and starts leading him away in a role reversal of their usual scenario. Toph is not usually gentle, but there's a friendliness to the contact; she's not just yanking. ]

What about you? How are you doing?

[ That's priority two. ]

[battlefieldbrat]

[he stumbles along behind her, thrown off at first by her assertiveness. but he doesn't try to escape her grip.]

I'm fine. [this is an automatic response.] I found my stuff easily, and everything else seems to be in working order.

[fieldtrip]

[ She's itching to use her bending to send them along at high speed, but they need to clear the forest first -- she's not feeling confident enough to try to navigate between trees as well right off the bat -- so they have some time to talk first. ]

Yeah, I'm sensing everything way more easily now. ... But we really did live out here in the woods for a while, huh?

[ As in, the past few weeks had really happened, even if the memories themselves spurring it were false. ]

[battlefieldbrat]

I was already living out in the woods. [he says it drily.] But, yeah. Pretty sure that happened.

[he's a little grimy, which tells him the other him didn't share a fondness for the hot spring - or didn't know it existed.]

[fieldtrip]

You were?!

[ Toph stops short, jerking them to a halt. ]

I know what I'm doing to make sure the bending's back. You're getting that house I owe you.

[battlefieldbrat]

I-I thought you knew? [the short stop seems to have thrown him off a bit, again.]

It's just like camping on a mission. No big deal.

[fieldtrip]

You know they give you a room at the inn when you show up, right?

[ Toph blows out a breath, making her hair flap in front of her face. Then she starts pulling him along again through the woods. ]

Sleeping outside is fine, but you're crazy to give up a bed if it's open.

[solitarysoul]

[Levi is moving on autopilot more so than going anywhere specific.  He's managed to find the inn and retrieve his rifle from his room, but that was more for peace of mind than because he was in the woods.  He was out in the woods because he felt more at home in them and there'd be less people to deal with.

He pauses when he ends up at Kakashi's hide out.  It looked a little different than what the fake-him remembered, but it was close enough.  The same place, now that he thinks about where he'd been walking.

Is the kid still in there?  Did he even exist in...well, probably not reality but whatever this all was.  Part of him hopes Kakashi's still around, since they were friendly in whatever last month was.  The real him (he has to hold onto that, something had to be real) didn't really know how to handle friends, but he still hopes that if Kakashi exists he's okay.  Another part of him hopes the kid was never real, so he can go back to trying to ignore most of last month.

He calls out anyway.  Kakashi'd probably prefer it, right?  Even if he tries to ignore the fake-him's emotions on this he remembers the noise traps.  Kid wouldn't like to be snuck up on, especially by someone with a gun.]

Hello?

[battlefieldbrat]

[kakashi is currently up a tree, dealing with a bundle of scarves that were tied to the branches by the other him. he's not immediately visible, but levi gets his attention easily. still in the tree, he calls out.]

Who's there?

[he sounds stiff and cautious, nothing like the cheery kid who lived here before. and yet, the voice is the same.]

[solitarysoul]

[He looks up, pinpointing the place Kakashi's voice came from easily. That was the same voice...so the kid still existed. But what did he remember? Levi has no idea how much or little other people have retained from that nightmare.]

Uh...I-i'm Levi.

[And then he stops, because what the hell does he say here?]

[battlefieldbrat]

[kakashi hops down from the tree, landing easily despite the daunting drop. in his hands are a bundle of dirty yet colorful scarves.]

I remember you. [he doesn't sound any less cautious, though.] What are you doing here?

[...at least it's less rude than outright asking him what he wants.]

[solitarysoul]

[So he does remember...made the conversation easier, at least.]

Kakashi, right? I was just walking...I guess my feet or my "memories" took me here without me noticing.

I can leave.

[Does he want to? He's not sure what he wants about anything right now.]

[battlefieldbrat]

I guess you did like to hang out here...or maybe you just liked the free food?

[his tone is dry, but otherwise not quite so outright cautious.]

You don't have to. [he surprises himself a little with this admission.] You could make yourself useful and help get these stupid scarves down. Assuming you can climb a tree.

[solitarysoul]

Both, I think.

[He eyes the leaf on Kakashi's headband. Did some of reality seep into the fake like and make the kid paint that? Hm.]

Sure. I'm not really doing anything.

[Maybe doing something will stop him from thinking too much. He has no trouble climbing up into the trees to retrieve scarves, even with the gun slung over his shoulder. Hopefully Kakashi doesn't mind if he just let's the scarfs drop to the ground.]

[battlefieldbrat]

Great.

[as they're basically trash in his eyes, kakashi has no problem with the scarves falling to the ground. he makes no mention of levi climbing the old fashioned way, knowing by now that people with his own skill set are rare if not non existent.]

So what's your deal, really? You're more than some kind of layabout, I assume.

[kakashi.............]

[solitarysoul]

I'm....

[He sighs.]

...I guess that's what I am here. With less drugs. I was a soldier before I ended up here.

What about you? You don't seem like a normal kid.

[He probably still doesn't want to be called a kid, but Levi isn't sure what other term to use here.]

[battlefieldbrat]

You could say I was a soldier of sorts.

[it's a close enough term, anyway. seems like a lot of people around here have never heard the term "ninja".]

By the traditions of my village, I'm an adult. So you can drop the "kid".

[solitarysoul]

Sorry. You don't seem like a kid, anyway.

[Him being a soldier would explain that. Levi stops himself from asking how old Kakashi is, because traditions that force a kid into adulthood early are a very sore subject for him. But he hated that question (still does) and it didn't really matter when it'd already been done.]

[battlefieldbrat]

Thanks.

[dry, again. kakashi starts gathering up the scarves on the ground, more to have something to do than any urgent need to clean them up.]

If you don't mind me asking, what's that thing on your back?

[kakashi has no concept of what a gun is.]