Someone you loved

Chapter 13

And I'm back with a new chapter! Finally! It has taken me ages to write something that wasn't complete and utter crap but hopefully the next one won't take so long again. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it since your comments always encourage and help me when I'm stuck. 

Anyway, stay healthy and safe in these times.

Love, Stella 

*******

There was a saying his father had told him when he had been a child, one that Kakashi had never really understood or tried to understand.

Smart like a Nara. Assertive like a Yamanaka. Kind like an Akimichi. Persistent like an Inuzuka. Consistent like an Aburame. Respect like a Hyuuga. Embrace like a Senju. Love like an Uchiha. Loyal like a Hatake.

Love like an Uchiha had been a foreign concept to him, caught in the believe that the clan was full of arrogant and cold-hearted shinobi. However, the last Uchiha had taught him, had allowed him to see, that it wasn't true. His perception had been warped by the same rumours that had once pushed his father to the end.

A concept he had always understood had been the loyalty of the Hatake Clan. Once upon the time, his clan had sworn loyalty to Konoha and Kakashi had breathed that same blind loyalty for years. After his first pack – his father – had died, killed by the same loyalty people praised the Hatake Clan for, he had had only his village. So, he became the rulebook shinobi.

Cold-hearted. Bloodthirsty. Without mercy. A weapon for his village.

But then he had found other people that he could swear loyalty to and just when his new pack had been in reach, he had lost them. Torn from his blood covered hands by the same village he had sworn loyalty to.

There was a time he had lost his way, because not feeling had been easier than living in a world without his pack. He had never had the chance to make these people his real pack, had never the chance to tell them what it meant to a Hatake, had never the chance to form the bond that would make them his. And a lot of times he was thankful for that. Because if losing his potential pack had destroyed him that much, had shattered the last bit of what had once been Hatake Kakashi, how would it have felt if they had been truly his? And sometimes, he hated himself for that.

Loyalty to his village had kept him alive even when he had wanted to die.

And then the Sandaime had pushed a genin team into his hands, hands that murdered more people than he could count, hands that had been drenched in his own teammates blood, hands that tainted everything they touched. Despite everything, the Sandaime wanted him to teach the new generation. Maybe, the man had known that Kakashi was tired of fighting on, maybe he had seen that the wolf in Kakashi - covered in scars, bony body and dull fur, jaded eyes, and so, so alone – and had known, maybe he hadn't.

Either way, he had silently accepted, bound by his loyalty to the village.

Kakashi hadn't expected to care. He hadn't expected his wolf to wake, slowly and wary, but once again awake. But he did.

Step by step, he had allowed the genin team he hadn't wanted and an Uchiha he hadn't known to breach through his carefully constructed walls. And before he had realised it, he had allowed himself to feel again.

When he had found his pack slowly bleeding out in his apartment, his wolf had risen, teeth bared and eyes glinting dangerously. A potential pack had once been ripped from his hands, he'd not allow the same to happen a second time.

Leaving his apartment, even if it was to alert the Hokage and hunt down the snake that had tainted his Uchiha, his pack, had never been so hard.

The Hatake wasn't aware that with every step he took, dark and heavy chakra surrounded him, scaring the other shinobi.