This idea for this fanfic was suggested by Shiroi Hikari-sama, although it didn't come out quite the way I'd hoped...
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Guardian Angel
They were his life.
He lived for his team; for their triumphs, for their failures. And he told that to everyone who cared to listen. That Team Seven was his life, that each of the three students he taught represented an aspect of himself, and he was proud of that. Sasuke was his dark side, he'd say—his traumas, his troubled times, and the raw courage it took to overcome them. Naruto was his lighter self, his hidden smile, the perverted books in his pockets.
And he would never finish this oration, never out of the thousand-and-one times he'd started it. That was the way he planned it, of course. He knew that by the time he'd gotten to Naruto, someone would interrupt with another tale to tell, and he could let things take their own course from there. Just as long as he never had to get to her.
His third student.
Haruno Sakura.
It wasn't that he hated her, or held her in a negative light. He didn't begrudge her for her shortcomings, although he had every right to do so. As a ninja, she was deadweight, a jinx on two legs. The weakest link, personified. She had no skills, no stamina, no saving characteristics whatsoever. It was a wonder she was still allowed to go with them on their missions, when all she ever did was watch. It was a wonder he didn't let her go.
It wouldn't have been difficult to do that, in theory. He could come up with one excuse or another, but his word was law either way. He could just say it to her face and walk away.
But he couldn't.
Because by doing that, he'd be damning himself to a million sleepless nights and a million lifeless days. Living with the guilt of knowing that he, Hatake Kakashi, the one who was supposed to have made her strong, had been the one to keep her like that.
Like so many other things, it had started small. Barely noticeable, so slight an anomaly that it didn't seem quite there. Giving her some slack in their training exercises; allowing her to sit on the sidelines as he urged her teammates to keep on going. Guarding her closely with his eyes wherever they went, and telling the other two to do the same, until it became a habit.
A habit that soon grew into a gruesomely real obsession.
He'd known he was in trouble and he still couldn't stop. It was instinctual, he could argue. It was humane. The strong may live and the weak may die, but what was wrong with prolonging what life the weak did have? It was his atonement, his way of making up for all the lives he could have saved, so many years ago, and didn't. His way of turning back the clock; taking the shame from his past and throwing it into the ocean of the future.
All the while, knowing that it would return to him with the tides.
All the while, knowing that he wasn't just hurting himself.
All the while, knowing that his good intentions didn't mean a thing.
But it was too late now.
At least they didn't cremate her, or drop her in some civilian mass grave. For all shinobi get a tombstone, even paper ones.
With a heavy sigh, he got up from his knees and brushed the dirt from his pants, standing on the freshly-turned soil and knowing he'd failed once more. The rays of smiling sunshine clawed at his back reproachfully.
Amazing, how he'd gone from Angel of Mercy to Angel of Death so quickly.
Before anyone asks: Yes, I'm well aware that the part about gravestones doesn't fit with the canon Konohagakure (as far as I know, although I've seen it used in several other stories). This is one of my rare oneshots where everyone is, for the most part, in-character....