𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐔𝐓, kakaobi.

13 | where dark roots lurk

chapter xiii;

Kakashi is nineteen and for the first time in three years, she's happy. Completely and fully happy. With smiles and all. 

(Obito may or may not be the cause. Kushina walking may or may not contribute. Rin having more time may or may not be part of it. Naruto's smile has a lot to do with it, either way.)

Kakashi's ANBU, has been one since that 10th of October. It has nothing to do with protecting the village and all with protecting her heart. Because Kakashi lost a father and Obito, almost Kushina and Rin, too. And she didn't cope with it. 

(Didn't know how.)

In her time in ANBU, she makes ANBU Captain in record time and trusts her squad with everything she is — inside the missions, that is. 

(Because they still don't know how embarrassing is that she has to change in the same room as them, how she hates her body everytime she gets to see it, how she can't bring herself to even look at it some days.)

In her time in ANBU, Hound —Kakashi—  is revered, has completed missions deemed suicidal and has led her squad through impossible after impossible. She has returned home with all her squad alive time after time and has the record on least casualties on missions ever.

In her time in ANBU, Danzo approaches her and makes her see the ugliest part of Konoha. ROOT is darkness, but she knows — on her own, she won't be able to do anything. So she turns to her Hokage, tells everything to him and accepts Danzo's offer. She infiltrates. She goes to the deepest part of Konoha and digs into its roots.

(And she is loyal to Konoha, but this isn't it.)

(It breaks her further, to know her home has a side so dark most of them can't see it.)

Investigating, she comes to find a specific file. 

It contains Naruto's information. 

(She loses it.)

(Then she researches more and more and more and her sanity begins to slip through her fingers with every word she reads.)

(How Danzo doesn't notice a thing she doesn't know, but maybe it has to do with the fact that the Sandaime is making his life much more difficult since she first reported his approaching.)

In her time in ANBU, Kakashi reunites her squad and goes to the Hokage just to show him the files she's found. And so she is given a mission with a face full of regrets and eyes lingering with heaviness. 

("Wipe them out.")

(She gladly does.)

(Naruto is then three years old and he is going to be safe soon — she ends the threat in less than three months.)

(Though technically, she and a bunch of ANBU do it.)

Kakashi is nineteen and ANBU Captain when raiding one of Danzo's bases, she finds a little boy who can use Mokuton and needs her protection.

(Kakashi-senpai, he calls her. And so they bond.)

Kakashi is nineteen when Obito wakes up and she feels happy again. She doesn't quit ANBU, for it is a part of her life already. 

(Also she loves Genma and Raidou and Tenzo and Kara and Iwaza — loves Turtle and Lion and Tenzo and Lizard and Owl.)

Shortly after, she deals with the —how Naras would say, troublesome— aftermath of Danzo's death. She —with many others— starts countering the brain-washing of Ne's and returns some kids to their homes, safe and not sound but at least safe. 

And then—

Then she starts living again. 

(With Obito's smile —even though he's not out of the hospital yet— and Kushina at her home with Naruto —finally together, just as they should have been from the start—, with Rin's loving gazes and Gai's challenges and Icha Icha, with her ANBU Squad and her dogs by her side.)

Kakashi smiles once she and Obito talk and decide that he would be moving to her apartment with her once he's free to go and leave the hospital's bed.

(Kakashi blushes once they talk about their relationship and Obito's tender eye is fixed on her.)

(She has a boyfriend and Kushina's so loud when she congratulates them.)

(She loves her anyway.)

(She's also the happiest she's been in years, and it makes her heart want to explode every time she sees her loved ones together and smiling.)

(She's going to protect this.)