A Hole in One's Heart [Kakashi Hatake]

Chapter 23: A Ramen Send-Off

Sorry that this one took longer than usual. It snowed a butt load at my house and I had to shovel and then using the anime to get the dialogue right for this chapter was a chore. Lateness aside, I hope that you enjoy is this chapter!

---------------Kakashi's POV---------------

     I woke up as the sun started to rise, and I had a strange weight on my chest. My right arm had fallen asleep and was tingling because of the body laying on top of it cutting off my circulation... I looked around. I was on Ana's futon, and she was using me like a pillow. I was blushing like mad under my mask. 'Good, we are both fully clothed so at least I know that we didn't do anything that we'll regret later... But this is bad. How could I have let myself fall asleep here? I am her sensei and her supervising jounin, I can't sleep with her!' I slowly began to move Ana off me until I was finally free. Rubbing life back into my sore right arm (she had had been sleeping on top of it,) I quietly made my way out of her apartment and into my apartment next door. After quietly closing the door behind me, I slid down onto the floor. My heart was thudding and there were two images dancing through my head. The first was of her sleeping soundly, her head on my chest and fingers curled up in my shirt. The second was of her wearing that damn, wet kimono top that was practically see-through. I don't know why that particular mental image took this moment to reappear, but the combination of the two images overlapping each other was more than I could handle. Shaking my head to attempt to dislodge my rogue thoughts, I got dressed in all black and decided to spend my morning sorting out my thoughts at the memorial stone.

     The rain was coming down in droves, and I was soaked to the bone in minutes, but I really didn't care. I stood in the rain subconsciously clenching my hands at my sides. I had promised myself that I would protect the Hokage and keep him from being another name on the black piece of stone in front of me, but I had failed. I was foolish to make a promise like that, a promise that I could never keep. Rin's name stared back at me taunting me with the fact that I did not have the right to promise to protect anyone any more. I heard footsteps behind me, and I recognized her scent and chakra as it was a kunoichi that had been under me in the ANBU: Yugao.

     "Are those for Hayate? Better make it quick; the Hokage's funeral has already begun." She walked past me with a bouquet of flowers as I turned away from the stone.

     "And you, Kakashi, paying your respects to Obito? Instead of constantly inventing new excuses for being late, why don't you simply come here earlier?" She kneeled down to pray.

     "I did. I've been here since dawn. This place makes me think of the mistakes I made in the past and I've made so many of them." Obito, Rin, and Minato-sensei's faces all flashed before me. I walked away from the stone and any questions that Yugao might have had. When I arrived at the Hokage's funeral, everyone was placing flowers at the base of a picture of him. I slipped into the crowd and came up last to the Hokage's portrait, placing a white flower with the others. He had done so much for me. The Third Hokage was the one who had pulled me from my darkness, and I could not return the favor. I turned from the picture and stood between Ana and Naruto.

     Naruto turned to his sensei from the academy, "Iruka-sensei, why do they do it? Why do people risk their lives for other people?" I looked down at him sadly, remembering how I had asked myself that some question when I was his age after Obito had died saving me.

     Iruka looked off into the distance, holding on to the crying form of Konohamaru, "Well, when someone passes away, it's the end; his past and future, all the dreams he once had, they disappear along with him. This is true even if he dies honorably in battle as so many have, as Hayate did." I glanced at Yugao who had also arrived shortly after me. "All the ties that bind him to the living are severed, all but one, the most important of all: people. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers, the people who are important to him, and these people, the ones left behind, are joined together in a great circle of their shared memories of him. A circle of friendship, trust, and sacrifice that grows larger and stronger as time passes. It's hard to explain it. We remain in the circle together; we have no choice. It is important to us."