Just a drabble I wrote about Kakashi and his thoughts about Shinobi's first words.

I don't own Naruto or any of the characters that imply.


A Shinobi's first words never matter to them. In a Shinobi's eyes, their first words are just an act of nature - many Shinobi who've lost their parents at a young age don't recall their first words they spoke; instead their mind is only on what's happening now, what their mistakes are.

As a young child - one whom thought he was an adult by the way he acted, but didn't realize until he was standing there helplessly, talking to his friend for the last time, that he realized that he still was a child. He had always been so focused on being grown up that he had left all of his childish acts behind, but didn't realize that they were following him and being pushed away to the back of his mind. He was always too busy pushing away his emotions to see that it wasn't Rin that needed him, but it was him that needed her - as hard as it seemed to believe it, she understood how he felt.

She had been there when Obito passed away, she had watched in horror with him as the boulders of what had once been the ceiling had fallen on him - ending his life, ending his suffering. She had been there when he yelled at their sensei, furious that he had told her who his father was - but didn't know that she was only telling him something she'd heard from an Earth nin as she was passing by the group.

As Kakashi asks his students what their first words were, he realizes that their first words reflect on who they are. Other Jounin think he's crazy, that Obito's words (since he often believed that too) must have been eating away at him for years - and they had, but it wasn't those words.

He remembers his father telling him that his first word he picked up were 'kunai' and 'shuriken' instead of words similar to 'dad' and 'mom'. It doesn't occur as something strange though because Rin's first words were 'hospital' and 'medic nin' while Obito's were 'Uchiha' and 'ninja'.

All of their first words do represent who they are inside.

Naruto says that he doesn't remember, but that he hopes it was 'Hokage' because then it means that he will become Hokage some day. Kakashi only lets a smile upon his mysterious features (not that anyone notices, but he thinks Sakura does because she smiles too - it doesn't occur to him until then that she can read him like a book just like her cousin can) because he knows that Naruto will become Hokage someday - that he'll follow in his father's footsteps and become a good leader as his sensei once was.

Sasuke flat out refuses to tell them, but Kakashi doesn't nag him. He didn't expect the Uchiha to tell him anyway; but he does wonder if Obito really was different from the other Uchiha. Unlike any other Uchihas, Obito actually smiled and grinned - sometimes he wonders if he were the Uchiha, while Obito were the child of the White Fang.

Sakura blinks when he asks her the same question he's asked Naruto and Sasuke before her cheeks turn a light shade of pink and she says shyly that her first words were 'flower' and 'honey'. She glares at Naruto when he points out that those were two words.

He keeps his smile, seeing that she must've gotten those words from her cousin.

He sees that Sakura's been following in Rin's footsteps without knowing it. He just continues to count the days until Rin's death would occur at her age, hoping that she won't fall off of a cliff to her death like Rin had done.

He nearly has a heart attack, and accidentally hugs her and murmurs Rin's name when he sees what he thinks is Rin - but is left heart broken when he hears Sakura's voice when she calls out 'Kakashi-sensei' and realizes that it's just Sakura that's come back from a mission, that Sakura only has the bandages on her cheeks like Rin because she was grazed by a kunai with poison and had to cut the wound open to drain the poison out of her system - and that her hair is only the same exact color as Rin's because the enemy (who he guesses must've been a goof ball) dumped a mixture of yellow and brown paint on her.

As he watches Sakura's retreating figure, all he can think about are her and Rin's similarities.

As much as others would say that he was crazy, he still believed that Sakura's first words told others that she wasn't just a pink-haired girl or the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage - they told about her more than that.

He just hoped that he could protect her like he failed to do with Rin, and keep her away from a brutal death.


I actually kind of like this one-shot, usually my non-KakaRin related one-shots turn out to be horrible. Though I've gotten some more practice with writing, so maybe people will actually like this one.