Impossible to Forgive

Chapter 1: Chance Meeting

I was walking to Hokage Tower early in the morning. The birds were chirping and the sun was just starting to rise. The only other people who were up right now were probably Might Guy and Rock Lee off training like maniacs. My eyes drifted up to the cliff behind the village. Hashirama Senju the First Hokage, Tobirama Senju the Second Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi the Third Hokage, Minato Namikaze the Fourth Hokage, Tsunade Senju the Fifth Hokage, and then there was his face: Kakashi Hatake the Sixth Hokage. He hadn't even formally assumed office yet, but there was his smug face glaring out over the village. The war had been over for just over a year now, and Kakashi still hadn't taken up the office that he had been given right after it ended. He was probably just procrastinating; I had heard that being late was a habit his now.

I walked up the stairs to my small office in the Hokage's imposing building. I was grateful for the silence. Just yesterday, the whole village had been in a crisis. The Ryuha Armament Alliance had launched an attack on the village, the Land of Waves, and the high security ninja prison to free their captured leader. It was such a headache. And guess who was right in the middle of that as well? Kakashi, who else? He always seemed to worm his way into the spotlight no matter what. I turned the corner to the hallway where my office was located when I ran into someone. Who was up besides me at such a time?

He was wearing the village's new flak jacket with its grey-green color and lack of pockets, and he was also wearing a white haori, or long cloak with sleeves. A mask covered the bottom half of his face with two lazy grey eyes below his forehead protector, and his spiky silver hair sticking out over that. My luck had run out. I had successfully avoided Kakashi Hatake from the ages of seven to thirty-two, a full twenty-five years, until now.

He scratched the back of his head, "I'm so sorry. I really should have been paying more attention to where I was walking, but I thought that I'd be the only one awake right now." I noticed that two of his fingers were splinted, probably injures from his mission yesterday.

"I'm usually the only one here this early; what are you doing here?"

He looked slightly startled by my cold tone, "Um, I'm the Sixth Hokage now, and I was just getting all of my stuff ready. This is one thing that I really didn't want to be late for..."

I froze. So he'd finally officially assumed his office, great. Being the head of the Strategy Unit there was no way that I could avoid him at all now. I had daily meetings with the Hokage. "Well, good morning sir, I'll be heading to my office now if you don't mind."

"Uh, okay."

I brushed past him forcefully and threw open the door to my office and slammed it behind me. I collapsed into my chair. He didn't recognize me. That didn't come as a surprise, though. I looked very different from the small seven-year-old with short, mousy-brown hair that he knew. I was tall now, about five-foot eight, and my hair had turned dark brown like my mother's had been. I hated that I had gotten her hair, but whereas hers was always back into tight bun, mine flowed loose and wavy around my shoulders and stopped at my mid-back. My eyes were still hazel, the same color as Dad's, and not the cold, muddy voids that my mother's had been.

I started sifting through the large stack of papers that Shikamaru had dropped by yesterday. He was in charge of coordinating missions for the newly formed Shinobi Union, and we were constantly working together. It reminded me of all the time that I would spend with his father, Shikaku, and my late husband, Toukuro, in this very office coordinating and planning the Leaf's strategies. The Strategy Unit has always been small, before it was only the three of us, but now it was just me.

I looked across the room at the two empty desks as a silent tear dripped down my face. Even though there really wasn't space for three desks in the room, it had always made the office feel homey and warm, but now their empty reminders made the space feel cold. Over a year had passed since their deaths, but I still couldn't bring myself to redecorate.