The Lucky Ones
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. The characters are merely borrowed for a while.
Author's Notes: A very, very short piece, simply because this idea wouldn't leave me alone and I couldn't study otherwise. Kind of a belated birthday gift to myself, I suppose. As always, comments are greatly appreciated.
There are only two kinds of shinobi, and Kakashi knows it. He knows it better than anyone as he extinguishes the candles on his birthday cake without pulling down his mask, to the aggravation of all who were present. He knows it better than anyone as he searches the faces in the room and his mirth is portrayed through his one visible eye. He knows it better than anyone as, in the gathering of jounin, the three exceptions that were his students approached him for a word of congratulation.
There are only two kinds of shinobi. They are not divided into the strong and the weak, as Sasuke believes. The boy is a pit of scowls and deep-rooted anger without the seasoning of experience. Strength is too subjective to be used as a proper criterion, and sometimes strength had nothing to do with it at all. They are also not divided into the acknowledged and the unacknowledged, as Naruto believes. The former category is far too insignificant to be a section on its own, and again objectivity was much too great of a factor. The children now have no knowledge of his father, although Hatake Sakumo was a legend in his generation. Naruto reminds him too much of another legend but he steps on that thought before it forms, like he always does. And shinobi are definitely not classified by their relative usefulness to one another, as Sakura fears. Comparing destruction and reconstruction was impossible without a common denominator, one that did not exist. Sakura smiles shyly before moving back to complete the mosaic; anger, laughter, and hesitance triangulated into one abstract picture. Kakashi thinks, not for the first time, that birthday celebrations were the worst way to be reminded of one's own age.
There is only one concrete way to classify shinobi, a thought that is reaffirmed as he imagines all of the faces that should have been in attendance but weren't. The only thing Kakashi doesn't know is whether the dead or the living are the lucky ones.
end