The Power to Heal and Destroy by Phoenixsun

Chapter 4: Please Forgive Me

The Third sat in his office early in the morning. He had sent somebody to look for Kakashi and, knowing him, Hiruzen had at least two hours before he showed up. Sighing, the Hokage tried to find something to distract himself. Briefly he considered one of those colorful books that Jiraiya had sent him.

Suddenly, with a cloud of smoke, the Copy Ninja appeared in the Hokage's office, just as the seasoned shinobi had build up enough courage to start reading his previous student's novel. "You wanted to see me, Hokage-sama?" The silver haired man asked.

"Yes Kakashi... I wanted to talk to you about Naruto." Sarutobi replied. "Did you know that he was attacked last night?" He questioned.

"What happened? Is He alright?" Shocked at the piece of news, the jounin immediately asked in concern. Then, after a second, anger at his student being attacked started to set in. "Who did it?" He asked, expecting it to be one of those brainless villagers that still viewed Naruto as a demon. The answer he received, surprised him even more than the news that one of his genin students was attacked within the past twenty four hours.

Sarutobi looked directly into Kakashi's eye and responded. "Uchiha Itachi."

Needless to say, it took the Hayate's brain a couple of seconds to process the fact that an S rank criminal had attacked one of his students. "You can't be serious, Hokage-sama. Uchiha Itachi attacking Naruto? How could that happen?"

The Hokage looked at the Copy Ninja with a bit of disappointment. "It seems that after you team meeting, Naruto was feeling a bit distraught... So he decided to take a break from the ignorance of the villages and fell asleep outside the village." He informed. "It was when he was making his way back that he was attacked by the missing-nin, Uchiha Itachi." Sarutobi explained.

Kakashi kept silent for a few moments. He knew too well what the Sandaime had meant by distraught. "Hokage-sama, you have to understand... I feel it is my obligation with Obito... Sasuke is from the same clan and he needs somebody to train him on his bloodline." The silver haired man tried to get his point across. "And I believe that I am the best choice, since I'm the only one who still have a Sharingan and is still affiliated to the village." He said in his defense.

The Third simply shook his head in responds. "So you owed to you fallen teammate?" He reiterated the point that the younger shinobi had tried to make. "What about your sensei? You do know that Naruto is his son, do you not?" The Hokage asked.

The Copy Ninja looked down at the floorl. He was one of the few people that actually knew that Naruto was the Yondaime's son, though he never knew who the mother was, but still he could not help but feel that his debt with Obito was far larger. "I know, Hokage-sama, but still, Sasuke is that last of Obito's clan! He would have wanted me to train him!" The jounin desperately wanted to explain himself.

By now, the Hokage was beginning to get angry. "You think that Obito would have wanted you to focus only on training Sasuke?" Sarutobi's eyes wer e a combination of anger and disappointment. "Please, do not insult his memory."

The comment hurt Kakashi. How could the Hokage even think that he would do anything to insult his teammate's momory?

But Kakashi did not have time to voice his opinion as the Sandaime started again. "First Obito would not even think of giving one student preference over another; that is something that your sensei tried to teach you." He began. "Second, your tea is the exact image as your old one. You have a famous teacher, except that in this new team the instructor seems to like playing favorites, you have a prodigy, a girl who tries to keep everyone together, and a boy that some consider thrash but actually has incredible potential." The Thrid stated. "Now tell me, who has Obito's position in this team?" Sarutobi questioned.