🦊Naruto Hatake🦊

Chapter 5

Despair and Redemption

You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody's lack of love
Or you can start speaking up
Nothing's gonna hurt you the way that words do

~Sara Bareilles~

Redemption: the act of saving something or somebody from a declined, dilapidated, or corrupted state and restoring it, him, or her to a better condition

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When Kakashi exited the tower, the sun was shining brightly, winking off the waterways in a cheerful manner that seemed to cruelly mock him. All he saw were blue eyes filled with the anguish and accusation from his betrayal. He walked aimlessly, not knowing where he was going and not caring either.

He came out of the blackness to realize he had stopped and widening his eyes, he saw the bar. He desperately wanted to drink until he forgot his little pup, his son. He stood there for a long time torn between the desire to drink into oblivion or to fulfill his oath to Naruto. He took a step forward towards the building then stumbled back in horror. He had made a promise to himself and his son, never again try to solve his problems with alcohol. That only made it worse.

How was it possible to fall in love with something so fast? He should not have been capable of such feeling. He thought that a part of his soul was destroyed forever. He did not get to spend a lot of time with the little chibi, but every moment burned itself into his memory, the loneliness and desolation in his eyes when he found him which so matched his own feelings and the terror when he took him back to the orphanage that night. The surprise and pleasure when he came back into the hospital room and didn't abandon him.

He also remembered the first time he laughed when Kakashi raced across the rooftops. He had so many plans to make the kid laugh again. Then this morning when he showed the boy how to use the bathroom. The glint of pride when he successfully copied the nin and the way he strutted out of the bathroom made him proud too.

In addition, his fighting spirit, it was there, hidden deep, but it was there. When the copy-nin forced him to go outside, the boy fought back with recklessness and tenacity that Kakashi knew was inside him. He had a lot of his mother inside him. He had been so looking forward to discovering every facet to his personality. It did not matter that Naruto was not his flesh and blood; he was his son. His increasingly shaking hand covered his eye in attempt to control his rage and desperation. He couldn't breathe, not without Naruto. He suddenly had an urge to kill everyone. Why should they be going about their lives when he was so desolate? What did he do to deserve this? Why did they get to be so happy when his world was so bleak and dead? Why do they rip the one thing that made him feel like his world was finally complete? That the wholes and the scares were finally started to heal they had to rip a part the reason for that?

He looked down at his green-sucker stained hand and clenched it. He could not break down, not here, not with all these people around him. His rage melted away and changed. He stood still and tried to control his rising panic. He just could not break down here. Gone was his tightly controlled mask that everyone saw, all that remained was the raw naked emotion of a broken man. He shoved his tightly fisted hands into his pockets and turned around to see Guy inches from his face.

"Yosh Kakashi, my rival, where is that supremely youthful specimen from yesterday?" he shouted before he got a good look at Kakashi. "I have a gift for... him... What's wrong?" What he saw shocked him. He had never witnessed such pain before.

"He's... he's...gone... they took him away from me, Guy," he stuttered. His eye held a pleading expression that was not lost on the observant shinobi. Guy understood immediately what he needed to do.