Dissonance
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Hatake Kakashi was not meant to be a jounin. He was not meant to be trusted with children; for children is what they are biologically, children is what they were psychologically, and children they are again in every sense of the word when they're choking up their blood and holding in their life with their own wet red hands.
Sort of like Sasuke is: right here and right now.
Sasuke isn't really breathing anymore. He's making frantic panting sounds, more sobs than breaths. The physical anguish isn't something that can be forgotten or marginalized, but right now it stands second to the abstract terror that locks Sasuke's eyes on Kakashi.
Right now, it isn't the fact that he's been laid open from throat to stomach that concerns Sasuke.
"I can't-- I can't die before him-- he's still alive..."
Kakashi reflects that this would be an appropriate time at which to say something: anything. Perhaps not necessarily something soothing, but at least something to try and set him at peace-- to try to lift that burden--
that isn't even possible.
Sasuke is still talking, still spilling out words, still spilling out blood. "He can't be the last! I can't die while he lives... don't let me die before him-- don't let me..."
Sasuke grasps at Kakashi's sleeve, his wide black eyes terrified and pain-wracked and defeated, and then he loses the fight.
Hatake Kakashi holds a twelve year-old boy as he dies with a great grudge still rotting his heart, and reflects that he was unable to fix that about Sasuke as well.
Itachi hears about it three weeks later. He considers the information for a long time, his Sharingan distant and unfathomable, and then he pulls his hat down over his deep black eyes and turns away.
