I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone. - Jonathan Safran Foer, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"
This, then, was joy:
Two years and six months of watching his students holding onto the cracked foundation of their once-friendship, to find that, as the world fell into battle, they fell back into place.
A god was laid to rest, the long dead scattered like ashes in the wind, people around the world fought their way out of enchanted cocoons, and Kakashi's students paid attention to none of it as they laughed and cried and embraced.
Naruto and Sasuke lay within the circle of pale green light that spread from Sakura's hands, looking strangely satisfied despite their alarming closeness to death. Maybe that was what Sakura was berating them over. Kakashi couldn't see her face, and he was too far away to hear, but Sakura's arms moved like whip lashes as she gestured about her.
After reviving the battlefield, fighting a man who laughed at the borders of death, punching a god, and then healing two boys who somehow took surviving the apocalypse as an opportunity to lose an arm each, Kakashi wasn't sure where she found the energy.
Even after that green light faded, Naruto and Sasuke did not rise. Naruto lifted his arm briefly, only for Sakura to smack it down again - hard enough that Kakashi could hear it. She raised a hand, and bodily pushed Sasuke down when he tried to sit up, but not so quickly that Kakashi missed the flash of amusement on Sasuke's face. Her duty done, and the boys threatened into submission, Sakura propped her hands on her hips and sat heavily on the ground.
And Kakashi watched.
Kakashi wasn't like Naruto, wasn't like Sakura. When people left him, they generally did not return - and the one person who had come back had fought on the opposite side of the battlefield.
But Naruto had forced together the cracked foundation through force of will, Sakura had been like glue with hope and tenacity even when she'd nearly killed someone she loved to try and save him, and Sasuke had returned of his own free will.
Maybe something could grow on that after all.
Recriminations could come later. Kakashi limped over to join them.
fin.