With A Face Like Stone
Annmarie Aspasia
"I'm surprised to see you here."
The masked kunoichi did not look up as Hatake Kakashi strolled to her side, hands in his pockets.
"What, no greeting for your favorite adopted student? How cruel."
"How is he?" the kunoichi asked, abruptly, after several seconds of silence. Kakashi stopped.
"As well as can be expected, I imagine. You knew he would suffer. Both of you did. He... reminds me of you, sometimes."
The kunoichi did not reply, or give any indication that she had heard. The leaves of the nearby trees rustled in the wind, and Kakashi fought back a wave of irritation.
"I come here nearly every day," he finally said, "more often than I did when you were in the village. For a long time, all of the people I loved were away or had their names carved into this rock. These were my only friends. These were the only people in whom I dared confide."
Her curiosity was piqued, as he had known it would be. "'Were,' Kakashi-kun?"
"You should stop calling me that. Ioutrank you now. And yes, they were."
"Alright, I'll bite. Who have you made friends with since I left? I don't remember you being overtly friendly, so it must be someone interesting."
"Why, my students, of course, and perhaps a few others," he answered calmly.
She snorted, a sound with which he had once been very familiar, and still remembered with remarkable clarity.
"They gave you students, little Kakashi? They must have been insane."
"Yes. You never heard the story? I thought for sure it would have been the gossip of every hidden village by now, though it's been a few years."
"I try to avoid the hidden villages. They haven't brought me much happiness in the past."
"One of my students is currently the most famous ninja in all of the five shinobi countries. I'm a little hurt that you didn't know."
She turned and raised a thin red eyebrow as she scrutinized him. "Don't tell me you taught that little Uchiha kid, the only one who survived, brat. I did hear that story."
"I did, but he's not the one I'm talking about." Realization settled into her eyes, and he could almost see her mouth, beneath her dark mask, set into a hard line.
"I don't want to hear about it."
"Why not, Kushina-nee-san?" he asked. She seemed to tense with the use of her name, which he had been so careful to avoid until then.
"I'm not Kushina anymore, Kakashi. You, better than anyone, know why."
"You're still Kushina, whatever you say. For his sake, I hope you never remember that, because I don't know if he could take the realization that his mother hated him as much as his village."
She turned away. "Don't tell him. I came to visit this place one last time. He'll... he'll probably learn about Minato sooner rather than later and I... I can't ever allow him to see me. So I came here for a final farewell," she said, almost more to the forest than to the former student of her deceased lover. Without a backward glance, she disappeared into the forest. After a second, he could hear her calling back.
"And Kakashi... I don't hate him." The sound of her voice echoed a little, and then died.
~Annmarie