Days when a shinobi could claim they surrounded themselves in a throng of others like them were non existent—for the life of a shinobi was a lonely one, often lived in obscurity and ended far before a shinobi's body had truly outlived its usefulness. It was a painful road wrought with unseen danger and deception within every shadow. Kakashi had walked the fine line of life and death, the lonely road, and weathered the oddities and pain his road wrought with its winding paths.
The swelling dust peppered his revealed skin, stung his eyes, tailed the rippling chakra that roiled and shielded a boy that had ultimately united the massive force at his back. A boy with hair like sunshine, a warrior once fragile and hated.
Never, Kakashi thought distantly as he scanned the mass of people that had acclimated to his presence, he'd never thought life would lead him to behold such a sight; arm in arm with men the copy-ninja had once considered to be his enemy.
Kakashi watched as Naruto walked deeper, the turbulent debris and broken land reaching his waist, a haunted sight that once more reminded Kakashi of his late sensei. Naurto then screamed and his war cry was echoed. This would be the last time, and it was perhaps in that knowledge that revived the tremors of suppressed emotion to the surface of the Jounin's battered skin.
"Because this world ain't gonna end!"
This would be the last war. This would be the end, and Kakashi would not allow Naruto to be silenced by what was his duty to see to its end. There would be no lonely path for a shinobi after this.
He would do this. He would do this one thing right.
"Watch his back," Kakashi said, his quiet words only seeming to ghost his lips for a moment before fading away. "I'll move forward and take care of Obito."
He had to. He had to. He had to.
Kakashi received no verbal response, but knew his words had been heard. He knew his words would be honored—for that was what it meant to be joined in a collective, he knew Naruto would be safe. There were no shinobi blades pointed at him—not this time.
That was what it meant to have comrades bound by circumstance. That was how alliances were made.
And for a moment, only for a moment, he felt himself warm to the idea.