Scars

Summary: Throughout their life, they collect many types of scars. Kakashi never particularly cared until he realized something. OneShot, Team Yondaime.

Warning: -

Set: Before, during and after Kakashi Gaiden

Disclaimer: I don´t own Naruto.

The first scars they collect are scars of imprudence.

Kakashi collects them at an age of four or maybe five. Obito and Rin are slower to follow, but every one of them ultimately has them. The scars are small, silvery from age and originate in times when they were children – or were supposed to be children – and were training to be a shinobi one day. There are scars from where they fell from the trees they were supposed to climb, the scars of shallow cuts and healed bruises from the repeated use of kunai and shuriken despite the young age and inexperience. Some scars aren't even visible any more, faded away and healed by children's soft skin and time. Kakashi would have claimed to have the least ones, because he is a genius, and he never – of course – was dumb enough to cut himself with a kunai. Rin has different types of scars, a result of her being raised as a kunoichi, something that included not only shuriken and kunai but stilettos and scalpels and every kind of weapon a female shinobi could use as a substitute to the obvious, manly ones. Obito probably has the most, because he is clumsy and falls more than often. He would have denied that fact, but they never talked about those types of scars.

The second types of scars are scars of improvement.

Namikaze Minato once takes them out for a camping trip in summer and notices the various scars on his student's arms and legs. Rin catches him watching her and tries to pull down her sleeves, which results in Obito yelling at him not to leer you pervert and Kakashi turns away disinterested. What actually has caught the future Yondaime's interest is one small, silvery scar on Rin's arm that stands out more than the others.

He, incidentally, knows where she received that one, and he still is angry that his students – they're so young – are assigned such missions. They're still children, for God's sake, and they shouldn't be used as puppets in this war. Rin smiles at him and her eyes sweep down his bare arms and he can't help but chuckle: yes, he has scars as well, every shinobi has them. But still, they're only children…

Reading his mind, Kakashi deigns himself to look back at the campfire and tells him that these scars show how much they have improved under his tutelage. Because – and that is the point where Minato is pretty sure the geniuses' argument stinks – the scars show they have only been hit, been cut, but they never have been injured to the point of death. Minato would have said that these scars show how often he has failed to protect them, but he doesn't because Kakashi would immediately argue that it wasn't his job to protect them and that they weren't shinobi for nothing. And Obito with his usual loudmouth chimes in that if they had been injured deathly, Rin would have brought them back, so maybe these scars are a sign for her brilliance. Rin blushes again and stops pulling her sleeves and Minato can't help but crack a smile.

Some of their scars they call scars of achievement.

Those are only few ones.

The one Obito received during the chuunin exam, when he was stabbed by his opponent and went down but refused to give up. He won the fight, he became a chuunin, and even though he knows he might not have made it if Hidden Leafs wasn't so desperate for new soldiers, he felt like he could do anything. He, in fact, was so elated he forgot he was hurt and collapsed in the center of the arena, but since he already had won it didn't matter. The one thing he suffered was a long, angry tirade from Rin's side, who stitched him up (since he didn't allow anyone else to do it) and a teasing grin from Kakashi's side.

The scar Rin remembered receiving best is a long, silver line across the palm of her hand because it reminds her of the first time she saved a life. It wasn't Kakashi's, it wasn't Obito's, and she still is glad because thinking back, she doesn't think she could have done it if her teammates had been the ones on the ground before her. One of the first D-rank missions they take brings them to a little village at the northern coast and confronts them with a drunken sailor who was threatening to kill a boy because he had dared to look at him. It was totally mission-unrelated. Kakashi and Obito reacted as quickly as her, rendering the man unconscious and probably very, very happy about that fact and Rin tried to save the boy even though her hand – she had grabbed the knife before the man could stab the boy a second time – hurt like hell. Ignoring the pain, Rin focused her chakra on the boy before healing herself. She saved him, and she would have done it again. The scar represents what she lives for.

Kakashi doesn't even think of his scars as signs of achievement. They were scars, signs of battles, no more. Whether it were scars of victory or scars of defeat didn't matter much as long as he came back home and had completed the mission properly. Thinking back much later, there was only one scar that was more to him than just another scar. The long, hard knot across his right eye is an achievement, an improvement, a gift and a bitter warning at the same time. He hadn't accepted how valuable teamwork was until it was too late. He hadn't realized how important Obito was to him until his best friend had died. He hadn't cared about Rin's feelings until someone had told him, and that was unacceptable. Now, the scar that ran across his eye served as a constant remainder of those things – and as a warning to never, ever again ignore something as precious as friendship and love.

Then there were their scars of battle.

Rin once joked Obito would be quite jealous, seeing Kakashi had the signs of countless battles they had taken part in all over his body. She was bandaging his chest and Kakashi was trying to breathe shallowly because he had forced himself to fight even though a few ribs had been cracked and it hurt like hell. He didn't see Rin watching the silvery lines and the knots with an expression of both dread and love. He didn't know she was wondering how often she would be able to stitch him up again until there wasn't anything left she could do. He told her dryly that Obito would be jealous if he knew Rin was seeing him like that, and she chuckled and handed him back his uniform shirt. It was so much easier pretending Obito was still alive.

Rin carried scars, too, Kakashi noticed one night when they were crouched in the shrubbery, waiting for the signal to attack. Rin was next to him, gazing out into the dark forest intently. He looked at her – saw her profile, the soft curve of her cheek bones, the rings under her eyes, the soft lips – and noticed the white line at the base of her hair. He lifted his hand and touched her forehead before he was aware of what he was doing. Surprised, she looked at him.

"Where did that one come from?" He asked, trying to keep rising anger from his voice. Rin shrugged.

"I don't remember."

That was the point when Kakashi started to see what his teacher thought when he looked at them with this weird, wistful expression: If Rin couldn't even remember where this scar had come from, she must have been involved in many fights. Too many fights, in fact.

Kakashi didn't like the idea at all.

It wasn't until he held Rin's dead body in his arms, her face white and a small smile still tugging at her lips because she had died knowing she had saved him that he realized there also were scars that weren't visible.

And that these were the ones that hurt the most.