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Disclaimer: I do not own any material belonging to the creators of Inuyasha or Naruto.
She smiled sadly, turning so that she could look over at the boy waiting for her. Her eyes brightened a little, before she turned back to the boy in front of her. She made small circles with her toe in the dirt beneath her feet, almost like she was nervous about how her answer would affect him. "Kakashi…"
He stared at her, his mask covering his true emotions as he wondered what she was going to say. He was only ten but he knew what it was like to protect someone else. He wanted nothing more than to glare at the boy beginning to walk toward them, obviously as impatient as ever. The boy couldn't even be on time, or follow most of the rules, why was it that the girl he liked fell in love with someone like him. Someone who always wore goggles for no reason!
"Kakashi… I," she stopped, frowning and turning her eyes away from him. "I'm sorry. I hope that you understand one day that it means a lot to me that you feel that way, but… I just… I'm sorry, Kakashi, I can't return your feelings. I'm really sorry, I hope this doesn't affect our friendship."
He wanted to huff, stomp his feet, and beg her to reconsider her decision. Rin was always trying to catch his attention, but she wasn't the type of person he wanted. Yes, he was ten, but that didn't matter to him. A life of a shinobi could be brief and quick. However, even if his heart was breaking, he nodded, "I-I… I'm sorry that I bothered you."
"Kakashi," she said, grabbing his sleeve. "I hope this won't make you hate me. You're one of my greatest friends, Kakashi, someone who pushes me forward in hopes for a new day. I just—"
"I understand," he said. "I won't come between you and him." He pulled his sleeve away from her grasp, knowing that Rin was coming from her unique chakra signal, which was traveling toward them. "I promise."
As he walked away, he heard her whisper, "I'm sorry, Kakashi," but paid her no mind. After he was far enough, though, he stopped and turned back, quickly hiding himself so that he could watch the interaction between her and that idiot he had to call a teammate. Why he was stuck with that stupid loser was something he'd never understand, but how the hell the same loser managed to get his hands on a girl like her was even more impossible than the first! Especially since he was always pulling pranks, he loved to smile and say that he was the best when he was not, and he loved to go against all the rules. The rules were there for a reason! Sure, he was a nice guy, but what did that count for in the end?
"Is everything alright, Kagome?" he said. The boy touched her arm, frowning at the sad image the girl at his side made. However, he smiled brightly when she finally turned to smile at him. His goggles gleamed in the sunlight, almost like they were radiating the happiness he did.
Kagome giggled, "I'm fine, Obito." She gripped his hand, "Come on, Obito, let's go have ramen! Then we can go train. I still need to practice my Genjutsu. My father says I'm doing really good and he'll begin teaching me how to activate my Kekkei Genkai soon."
"That's wonderful, Kagome!" Obito grinned. "You'll be the best kunoichi in the village with how much you work."
Kagome laughed, "I doubt that."
Obito wrapped their arms together, "You can be anything you want to be as long as you believe in yourself, Kagome. As long as you believe in your dream and work for it you will someday achieve it. After all, you shouldn't regret anything you haven't accomplished, only things that you've done in life."
She snuggled to his side. "You're right. I guess I'm just being silly again, Obito." She smiled softly, causing envy to fill the heart of their watcher, "You're like the light to my darkness."
"Hm?" Obito looked down at her in confusion, "What was that?"
"Oh, nothing!" she laughed.
Obito smiled, "You know what, Kagome? We can go visit that will meadow that you like so much tomorrow. I don't have a mission and I doubt we'll be getting another one anything soon."
"Shouldn't you be training tomorrow, Obito? With your team?" Kagome asked.
He turned his face away, obviously knowing that he did from Kakashi view. His arm unwrapped from Kagome's and around her shoulder in order to pull her closer. "Not that I can think of? Hm, was it tomorrow?"
She shook her head, "You know you can't always be late, right?"
"Sure I can!" he countered. "Rules were meant to be broken. Why else would they have made them?"
Kagome and Obito walked on, but he heard one last sentence from the girl he wanted and the boy he was beginning to admire. "Oh, I don't know, Obito. Maybe so they could be followed."
"Yeah, but that's so boring."
Kakashi sighed, knowing that he was going to be late once again. He didn't care at that moment, though; as he stared at the front of door he was standing in front of. Surely Kagome would be willing to come out today. Perhaps training with him and his team would manage to lift her spirits, even if she hadn't been very lively since the incident. He knew why she hadn't wanted to come out a few days ago, though, and he hadn't gone to try and bother her that date either.
It was her time of mourning and she didn't need to be disturbed at that time. He knew what it was like to mourn the loss of his companions, his friends, and his teammates. Kagome, though, had lost the persons she'd loved with all her heart. The boy she'd once promised to never have feelings for another, even if he hadn't deserved such loyalty. He felt ashamed to know that he still sought for her, hoping one day that she'd want him to comfort him, but until then he dove his nose into Jiraiya's books.
Lifting his hand to knock, Kakashi paused for a brief second, wondering to himself why he'd spent his life chasing after her. It made no sense for him to continue to try and gain her affection when it was obvious she'd never return them. Yet, he believed that if he made it seem like she was never alone that she would one day fall into his arms. She'd forget all about his best friend and she'd come to him. Still, he couldn't help but wonder why…? Surely there was a reason why he was still going after her, and telling himself over and over again at night that she would see what he saw soon enough.
Soon enough, however, was never soon enough.
Once he'd thought he might fear Kagome's rejection, though he'd known all along that it had to come from her lips in order to make him leave. He'd known that she would have to come to him for her to truly belong to him, especially after he made that stupid promise to leave her and her feelings to herself. Silently he'd added until she came to him, but she didn't know that. It was quite obvious that she didn't, since she probably would have completely ignored his presence at all if she'd ever known. Especially after Rin disappeared and a few of their other childhood friends were killed, sought evil intentions, or simply vanished.
That brought up another reasonable question to his mind, though. Why did he still hold fast to that promise now that Obito was gone? It would be so easy just to snatch Kagome away from them all without anyone noticing. Yet he continued to hold onto the promise that he'd made when he was ten and told himself it would not be honorable to do such a thing, even if she might not have remembered the promise herself. Still he knew that it had to do with the fact that Obito had been his best friend and he didn't wish to harm Kagome, but it had been so long since that moment in life. Why, even after all this time, did he hold onto the honor of keeping a single promise that he was beginning to loathe?
His visible eye narrowed a bit. He knew the answer to that. He didn't wish to hurt the woman he loved, even to this day. The same woman who refused to do anything but chuunin assignments, though Kakashi knew for a fact that she could have easily finished any assignment with ease. It was strange that she'd suddenly given up her dream to become apart of the ANBU Black Ops, since he'd known that had been her goal throughout life before that day.
Before the day that he'd returned alone.
Shaking his head, he tried not to think about it. Obito had turned out to be his best friend, he'd given him his eye while he was dying, and he'd allowed him to finish their mission. He still wasn't sure about something, though, the memory was blocked off because he did not wish to remember it, though he still went to the memorial site and mourned them. He wasn't sure about what Obito had gargled while he sucked in his last breath, but he could have sworn he heard, "Kagome… tel…" Tell her what, though?
That was a question he could never answer. Only Obito knew the answer to that and he was silently mocking his position from heaven. Or he felt like the Uchiha was; especially knowing that he'd loved to pull pranks on him while alive. Like when he was always trying to get his mask off, begging to know if he had some type of defect on his face. Truly it was only to hide his true emotions, but Obito had never come to know that.
Finally unable to hold back anymore, pushing the thoughts aside, Kakashi allowed his hand to rap against the door of Kagome's little home. He waited for a moment or two, listening to the sound of the thumping of feet against the wooden flooring, before there was a crashing, following by a muffled, "Oooff". He waited, though, a small smile forming on his covered lips as he thought about the last time he'd ever tried to enter her home uninvited. Of course, it hadn't been a wonderful experience, since he'd been going on twelve and he found Obito making-out with a blushing Kagome. Yes, not something to think about.
Not much later she came to the door, scowling at him with her hair dripping wet, her body covered by a pair of baggy pants and a tight shirt, yet easy to move in should she need to fight. He watched as suddenly one of her eyes changed to match his hidden one; something that he'd grown accustomed to after the death of Obito. It was her Kekkei Genkai. Nothing to worry about whenever it happened. Her eyes changed completely white whenever she was near a Hyuuga, whether they'd activated their Byakugan or not. Her eyes changed to red orbs whenever she was near an Uchiha, or someone with a Sharingan eye. She was able to use any Kekkei Genkai, as long as the user was close to her, and if it were a physical feature her body would change to accommodate it.
"Pervert," she snapped, "you just have to come whenever I'm bathing, don't you, Kakashi? What, you got some type of radar that tells you when I'm washing?"
He smiled brighter, "Of course not, Kagome."
Rolling her eyes, she stared at the man, before shaking her head. She had always felt strange after the moment she'd found out Obito had had Rin transfer his eye to Kakashi's ruined one to complete a mission. It was odd to only have one eye that could copy anything, but even odder that that eye had once belonged to her love. Still, she'd grown to not think about it. "Well, come in then. Let me get my hair rinsed out and I'll be with you once I'm ready," she said. As she turned, she decided she wanted to know what the pervert wanted. Turning her head, she asked, "Why are you here, anyway?"
"I felt it was time to drag you from your beautiful home in order to make sweet, sweet—" Kakashi rubbed the top of his head, feeling the bruise that would surely form sooner or later from her hit. "That hurt, Kagome!"
"Good," she smiled. "Pervert."
Shaking his head, he continued, "I wanted to know if you'd be willing to come help me with my team today, Kagome. It would be good to get out and get some fresh air once in a while. The training grounds might be a good place for you. Besides, it's been a while since I've had a worthy sparring partner."
"You just want me to do all the work," Kagome mumbled, stomping away from him.
Once alone, Kakashi gazed around the place he'd often entered. As a friend. Always as a friend. He sighed, a memory coming to him as he glanced down at a picture on a table. It was of Obito and Kagome, the goggle-headed Uchiha smiling as the girl flung herself into his side when he asked her something. He remembered that day, but there was another picture next to it, the one that merely Kagome, with pain filled eyes. He knew why she looked that way. He knew, because he had been the cause of it.
He'd been the one to tell her…
"No!" he screamed. "Let me go, I have to tell her!"
"Kakashi; let us handle this. You need to be taken to the hospital to have your wounds taken care of. You also need to make sure that nothing is going to happen to you because of that eye." His sensei sighed, "I know that it is a great loss, but Obito gave his life…"
"Shut up!" Kakashi yelled, rather out of character for himself. He was usually so collected, cool, the exact opposite of his best friend. The friend that he now knew he'd nearly betrayed time and again by trying to take his girl. "I have to tell her!"
"Tell who?"
"Kagome," Kakashi whimpered, pulling against the hold that his sensei had placed upon him. He respected his sensei more than anything, but he needed to do as Obito had told him. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew he needed to talk with Kagome. She was sure to understand; though he wasn't sure what he was he was supposed to tell her. He needed to see her, though!
His sensei finally let him go, "I see. Obito's little girlfriend, right?"
Kakashi bolted, not listening to the sound of the man's yells. He didn't care about his rank at the moment, he didn't care that he was simply a young boy who had fallen in love with his best friend's girl; he didn't care about anything except the fact that he needed to see her. His body hurt, his new eye felt like it was on fire, but he still kept running. Running toward the home that he knew she would be at. He could feel her familiar chakra coming from there.
She needed to know! Obito… Obito was dead!
Kakashi shook the memory away before it could get any further. He could still remember her shocked eyes as she screamed at him to prove that Obito was dead. He could still hear her cries as she dropped to the floor, weeping at the fact that her love was gone forever. He'd been struck between comforting the girl he'd come to love and the promise he'd made. Not only to Kagome when he was ten, but also to Obito a few weeks before they'd ended up going on the mission. To stop trying to steal his girl, because he was planning on making his entire life around her! Obito had planned to marry her. Even now he wasn't sure if he'd ever gotten around to telling her before his death.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she hit the floor in the hallway, clutching the side of her head with her hands as she shook her head back and forth in denial. He watched her, his decision pulling in two directions as he felt his own tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes. He watched as she finally began pounding her hands against the floor, tears rushing down her cheeks, while her left eye suddenly changed. His eyes widened watching her, listening as she clutched the eye and began crying harder.
"I-I'm sorry, Kagome," Kakashi mumbled. He couldn't watch this. He'd promised Obito that he wouldn't try anything to take her, that he'd stop now that he'd come to realize that he did love her, but she didn't love him. He closed his visible eye, having brought down his headband so that she didn't need to see the eye of her love.
He wished Obito hadn't died. He wanted so badly to blame this on him. He hadn't even tried to comfort Rin when she'd cried herself to unconsciousness after he'd finally won the battle. He wasn't sure how long she'd last after all this, though. It was all Obito's fault… yet it wasn't. He was so confused, and this wasn't helping him any. "Kagome…"
He turned around, having delivered his message, tears beginning to escape him. He listened as Kagome continued to cry, her sobs becoming louder and louder the longer he was there. He was slightly confused as to why her eye had changed to that of a Sharingan, but he didn't really notice it. It was something that was pushed away because he was simply stricken, still in shock from everything that had happened. Without a second thought he rushed out the door, listening as Kagome's crying became softer, but he cringed when he heard her scream as loud as she could.
"OBITO!"
He remembered that her deceased father had taken her to the hospital the same day his sensei, a Hokage at one time. Her father had explained that her Kekkei Genkai had activated from the way she had gone into shock from the news, her grief completely taking over. That hadn't stopped Kagome, though, she'd clung to her father's spirit until the day he died and then she'd found a way to cope. He knew, though, that she still didn't completely believe Obito was dead. She still wished that he hadn't died, but there were things that she would come to terms with as time moved on.
Or, at least, he hoped she would.
"Well, are we going or not, Kakashi?"
"Huh?" he turned to her, blinking. Shaking his head, he said, "Sorry, I lost myself on the road of li—"
"Shut up, Kakashi." Kagome shook her head, smiling at her old friend. Kakashi had always been there for her, but her heart ached for someone else. Her heart ached every time she saw Kakashi, for she'd known that Obito had been his best friend. They shared nearly the same feelings from his death. It'd helped her after her father had died, though she'd given up her hope of becoming one of the best in the ANBU Black Ops someday. Obito hadn't been there to cheer her on, so what had been the point?
"Yes, milady," Kakashi smiled. If only she'd realize that he was still waiting for her…
"YOU'RE LATE!" two genin yelled when they saw that their sensei had finally arrived. The third merely glared at him, crossed his arms, and acted like he didn't care that much. However, this was ignored when the blonde suddenly stomped up to the jounin, and growled, "AGAIN, Kakashi-sensei! Why can't you ever be here on time?!"
"Well, you see," Kakashi began, "I sort of had to make a quick stop to help this beautiful lady leave her home—"
The blonde snorted, "Yeah right, Kakashi-sensei! Like we're going to believe that. You have a different story everyday."
"Everyday, Kakashi?" a woman asked, bringing the attention of the genin to her. "Really, I would have thought that you'd tell them the truth after a while. That you're merely chasing after young girls who are half your age and within those pervert books Jiraiya writes. What are they called again…? Wait, I don't have to ask, you probably have one on you!"
He grinned, quickly putting his hand over the book within his jounin vest. "You can be so mean, beautiful lady."
"Beautiful lady…" Naruto mumbled. He turned to look at the raven-haired woman standing just behind Kakashi, her one blue eye and one red one staring at him in a smile. A true smile that reached her eyes. He freaked suddenly, his eyes widening beyond belief, "Oh my GOD! He's telling the truth!"
Sakura's mouth dropped to the ground. Naruto had gotten it before she had…? How was that possibly? Sasuke or her should have gotten that before the thick-headed Naruto.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes, looking at something else. Her eye. Her left eye, to be exact. It was… That's a Sharingan! He was searching for possible solutions to how she could have a Sharingan eye, only one. The same thing that his sensei had. "Maybe he's simply used the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and then a Henge?" he suggested.
"Huh?" Naruto asked.
"Dobe," Sasuke muttered. "Can't you see! She's got a Sharingan eye!"
Naruto turned back, gazing into the red eye that she was looking at him with. He backed away from her, suspicious. "Maybe you're right for once, Sasuke-teme."
"I get things right more than you do, dobe," Sasuke growled.
There was light laughter, before they turned to glare at the strange woman. She was wiping tears from her eyes, though her smile was sad and her eyes looked forlorn. "I'm sorry, you just reminded me of… of the past," she said. Obito… This blonde haired boy reminded her of Obito, while the Uchiha—she recognized him instantly—reminded her of Kakashi.
"So," Naruto asked. "Why do you have a Sharingan eye? Hm?"
Sakura nodded, "That's a good question. I thought only the Uchiha Clan could have the Sharingan, and of course, Kakashi-sensei."
"It's my Kekkei Genkai," Kagome muttered, her eyes distant. "Whenever I am near a person who has a Kekkei Genkai, whether it is activated or not, I am able to use it." She turned her head to look at Kakashi, "Because I am close to Kakashi currently I only have one Sharingan eye, the same as he does. Should I get closer to Uchiha Sasuke both would become the level of Sharingan that he currently holds. It works with every Kekkei Genkai, no matter what it is."
"So… you can use any Kekkei Genkai… from any Clan?" Naruto asked, awe filling his voice.
She nodded, "As long as I am within a certain distance of a user. Such as… the Byakugan, the Kekkei Genkai of the Hyuuga Clan. Should I get near any of the Hyuuga Clan members I am able to use the Byakugan, and should they have a strong Kekkei Genkai then perhaps with more power behind it."
"Cool!" Naruto yelled. He ran up to her. "Um, since you know Sasuke-teme, I thought you should know who I am as well! After all, I'm better than he is! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, the future Hokage! Believe it!"
"Dobe," Sasuke muttered.
Things around her sped up while she wasn't paying attention, her going with the Naruto boy in order to help him with a jutsu he'd asked her to assist him with. She smiled at him, her memory bringing a boy wearing goggles, smiling brightly at her as he told her his plan. That one day he would have fulfilled his dream and then he had had a surprise for her. She wished now that she could have known what it was, but he wouldn't tell her, no matter how much she'd tried to get him to.
She missed him.
Turning her head to the sky, she gazed at the clouds, his image forming in the clouds. She didn't notice that Kakashi was watching her, nor did she notice that Naruto was tugging at her sleeve as she tried to understand what Obito had been trying to tell her. All his body language that she hadn't understood, never trying to because she'd simply been happy that he was there. That didn't matter now, though, only that she still wanted him with her… she still loved him…
I miss you, Obito. I love you. You're the only one I shall ever love, I promise. You're one, and my only. I miss you so much, she whispered silently to the image. A single tear escaped her eye, the one that was currently in the form of the Sharingan, Kakashi being closer to her then before. She didn't notice, though, only the boy that tugged her from her past. The boy that reminded her of Obito.
It would be nice to get to know him. Treat him like a son, perhaps.
Smiling, she whispered, you would have liked that, wouldn't you, Obito?
For a moment she could have sworn she heard the wind whisper, "Yes…" Shaking her head, Kagome allowed Naruto to drag her away in order to help him. Obviously he'd been trying to gain her attention for quite some time, but she was ready now. Obito had been her life, he was her only love. But there were things in life that would fill the void.
Such as the boy before her—the boy that reminded her of Obito.
--Fin