Recuperating

[Kakashi Hatake]

The duo made their way through the barren halls of the Colosseum’s interior, drawing the stares of the occasional nurse or janitor as they searched for an exit. The rest of the competition had seemingly left the premises by this point, the empty rooms and confused staff indicative of their exodus. Wakka paid none of this any mind, his carefree demeanor evident as he strode casually beside his new companion.

“Man, looks like they all beat us out,” he said with a chuckle, running a hand through his coif roughly. “Oh well, don’t mattah, ya’?”

Kakashi nodded silently, keeping pace with the easy-going athlete. He merely listened as Wakka made small talk, rambling on in his odd accent. The copy ninja was not normally one to come together into an impromptu partnership; his life as a shinobi had gifted him with lifelong paranoia. Still, though he couldn’t place it immediately, he found something about the man oddly comforting. His kind, borderline goofy, attitude put the otherwise uptight ninja at ease from the start. Though still wary of the islander’s motives, Kakashi at least felt comfortable walking without keeping a hand on his blade.

“They got everythin’ here, huh?” The bronzed baller gestured into a small workroom as they passed, slowing to gawk at the inhabitant. A man-sized, bipedal reptile in a lab coat stood at a bench, grinding ingredients with a pestle. He/she (It?) glanced up as they passed, bearing a set of formidable teeth. “Yeesh!” Wakka uttered, quickly striding away from the creature’s room.

The scarecrow chuckled softly beneath his cloth mask, slowly beginning to understand his instinctual trust of this seeming complete stranger. He observed the man’s movements and mannerisms, his sharingan noting even the smallest shifts in his stance. The answer at first came slowly before smacking him square in the face. The baller’s confident stride and toothy grin reminded the shinobi instantly of Might Guy, his friend since his early days in the Shinobi Academy. Though Kakashi cared little for superlatives, one might have called the bowl-cut bruiser his closest friend.

“Ah, finally. This looks like it leads to the exit,” Wakka smiled confidently as they strode down the hall toward the orangey glow of the sunset. “So,” he said, turning to glance at the shinobi, “Where’re we headed?”

Kakashi slowed to a stop as they exited the Colosseum’s large archway. “I hadn’t given it too much thought,” he replied blankly.

“Me either,” the baller responded, chuckling. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the towering Colosseum; the arena’s strange, anachronistic presence was aptly representative of the Omniverse’s inherent oddness. “It’s so weird bein’ in a place as foreign as this.”

The copy ninja knew the feeling, of being pulled from a place of familiarity and being dumped into a world entirely alien. Indeed, though the he could navigate the forests around Konoha better than some could their own backyards, the same could not be said about Camelot. The Omniverse in general was a complete mystery to Kakashi, more so than anything he had ever encountered. Though confusion and fear vied for his attention in this strange world, one familiar feeling trumped the rest: curiosity.

“I came from that way earlier,” Hatake began, pointing over the distant hilltops. “So,” he quickly pulled an about-face, gesturing toward the horizon behind the athlete, “Why not that way?” Though he knew he could simply return to Mokugakure, something in him craved knowledge and adventure, two things he would not find in the village.

Wakka shrugged. “Sounds good to me, bruddah. We should get going though,” he stated, stepping toward what Kakashi assumed was the road.

“Agreed,” the silver-haired shinobi responded, casting his gaze toward the disused farmland in the distance. There he is.

“We should hustle, unless ya’ wanna sleep in the dirt tonight,” Wakka continued, glancing over his shoulder. “Sun’s goin’ down. If we hurry, maybe we can find can catch a carava-” the baller stopped suddenly, freezing at the sight of his companion swinging his leg over the back of an enormous wolf. “Friend of yours?” the islander gaped.

“I figured it would be faster,” Kakashi answered, grinning sheepishly beneath his mask.