To Live For Others

Chapter Six

I do not own Naruto, Kishimoto does.

Kakashi slowly closed the door entering the mission room. Lady Tsunade sat behind a long table filled with mission scrolls. Shikaku Nara sat on her right, and Iruka Umino on her left.

"Yo!" He said with a wave and his signature eye smile.

"Good morning, Kakashi. We have a mission for you." Lady Tsunade greeted, tossing him a mission scroll. "It's a B-Rank mission. Your normal locate and capture or kill. There is a missing nin that is currently kidnapping people in a small town just south of the border of the Hidden Sound. Given its proximity to the Sound village, I can only assume it has something to do with Orichimaru. The man you're looking for is a B-Class missing nin from the Hidden Water, named ."

Kakashi nodded, "I've never heard of him. Shouldn't be too hard, usually lower rank missing nin aren't as good at covering their tracks or keeping a low profile. Am I to go alone or with a team?" He asked.

"You will have a team; you can pick three members from this list of available gennin and chunnin." Lady Tsunade replied, handing him the list.

Kakashi snagged the list looking it over. He always preferred just having his team picked out beforehand. Especially after Sasuke left. If it were his choice, it would just be his team or no team. Unfortunately, two of his team members are gone; one who will return in another year or two, and the other who may be gone forever. Kakashi frowned, he even sees his third team member less since she started her training under the tutelage of the Hokage.

A normal feeling of guilt crept through Kakashi, the same feeling he got every time he thought of the pink haired kunoichi. He felt guilty because he always left her to her own devices. The same for Naruto. His guilt focused on the fact that he trained Sasuke over them constantly. It was not something he was proud of. He just felt sad being next to his Sensei's son, who reminded him so much of Obito. With Sakura he didn't know how to help her, she never showed any willingness to better herself as a shinobi before Sasuke left. Now she is entirely focused on training, even when she isn't with Tsunade, he has seen her working on her taijutsu with Rock Lee. He has even heard she asked for some help with genjutsu from Kurenai.

When the guilt became too much, he even offered to teach her a jutsu, she denied it saying that if she used ninjutsu she wouldn't have enough chakra left to heal someone that was injured. And thus, Kakashi has only been left to watch her improve without his help. It was easier to know that Naruto and Sasuke where away getting stronger, since they weren't here as a constant reminder of his failure. He had plenty of reminders of his other failures that, their absence help alleviate the weight. However, he did miss them. They were his team and he failed them. Just like his gennin team, and his team in anbu. The only one he can say that he didn't truly fail was Tenzo.

The only sliver of hope for him is that fact that Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura are still alive. There is still a chance to make it up to them. A chance he doesn't have with Rin, Obito, and Minato-Sensei. Or even with Itachi. Kakashi sighed, he can make it up to Naruto when he returns. He can make it up to Sasuke by helping him out of the darkness. And for Sakura the one thing he can help her with now was something that can't be taught but can be earned: experience.

He noticed her picture in the list of available gennin and chunnin, there's one. He scanned through the other pictures before settling on her blonde best friend. He's never worked with Ino, but Sakura has. They are best friends after all, so in theory they should work well together. And it may make Sakura happy, there's two. He looked through the list, trying to find anyone else from Sakura's graduating class until he found two. Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame. Kakashi's brows furrowed, he's never worked with any of the two. From what he heard about Kiba was that he was loud and brash, similar to a certain blonde knuckle head. While Shino was quite and reserved. And from the Aburame clan, which meant bugs.