Impossible to Forgive

Prologue

"Kaiyo! Kaiyo wake up, you're going to be late for school."

I opened my eyes and looked at the clock beside my bed. I really was going to be late. Dragging a hand down my face, I kicked my legs out of under my kunai patterned sheets and shuffled around my room to get dressed. Most of the girls in my class really cared about their appearances, but I really couldn't care less. I just threw on my favorite light green shirt, some slouchy dark blue pants and my standard, blue ninja-sandals. I strapped my shuriken holster onto my left thigh and wrapped the white bandages tightly around it to keep it from moving. However, when I ran a brush through my light brown hair quickly, I sighed at how it was bunched up on one side of my head. My hair was chin length and curled in slightly at the bottom, but it would never lay flat on my head. I took a clip and pinned both sides of my hair back from my face and hoped that that would be good enough.

I ran down stairs in a frenzy and grabbed some random food from the fridge, throwing it into a bag for my lunch. Most of my classmates had parents who made their lunches for them, but that was something my mother would never do. That fact that she had cared enough to tell me to wake up this morning was startling.

I walked to school slowly shuffling my feet and kicking at the small rocks that littered the path seeing how long I could keep a single one in front of me. My eighth birthday was going to be in about a month and my mother hadn't mentioned it at all. I doubted that anyone even remembered. My dad would have remembered, but he died about two years ago on a mission, and Mother's never really cared. She puts her life as a shinobi in front of her life as a civilian. Unfortunately for me, she considers me part of her civilian life. I had even over heard one of my friend's parents saying that my mother was angry that she had gotten pregnant with me because it caused her to take time off from being a shinobi. At this point, I didn't even care anymore. I always knew that she didn't want me, but at least by training to become ninja I might be able to make her like me a little. But I didn't hold out much hope. At a very young age I had learned that getting my hopes up too high only ever ended in disappointment. I kicked the next rock in front of me really hard and it shot off into the grass along the path.

That's when I saw a silver head of hair waltz in view haughtily. He had his hands in his pockets and a dark blue mask covering the lower half of his face. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with a white stripe down each sleeve and brown leather straps crisscrossing across his small chest. He had on pleated metal arm guards and dark blue pants that matched his shirt. He walked with a the purpose of serious ninja, something that you wouldn't expect from a seven-year-old. Kakashi Hatake, my best friend, was waving at me passively.

"Kashi!" I dropped my sad attitude and ran at him, then started playing with his spiky hair.

He waved his hands around over his head trying to swat my hands away, "Yo, Kai. Can you stop touching my hair now?"

"Nope!" But, I did take my hand from his hair as he ran his fingers through it, trying to smooth out the rumpled texture I had created. "So, what's a chunin like you doing around here?"

I could see that he was smiling with pride under his mask, "Looking for you. I knew that you'd be heading to school so I came to find you. Here, I'll walk with you so that you're not late."

I nodded and skipped next to him, my short hair bouncing next to my round face.

"Kai," Kakashi scratched the back of his neck, "My dad was wondering if you'd want to come over for dinner tonight. If it's fine your mother, of course."

"I don't think that she'll even notice that I'm gone... But I'd love to! What time?"

"The usual."