Summary: It is said that two heroes carrying the Sharingan emerged from the the Battle of the Kawabi Bridge. One of them became recipient of the most visited grave in Konoha's cemetery. The other threw away his pocket watch and was never punctual again.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Naruto and all of associated characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi.
ASHES
Chapter I - Prologue (His Inheritance)
Take what is not given to you and refuse what is willingly offered to earn your own strength and owe others nothing.
Within the first-floor flat of a traditionally-architectured apartment, the body sat slumped at the kitchen table. The window over the kitchen sink was wide open, but to the occasional passersby it looked as if Konoha's White Wolf had returned from a long mission and had fallen asleep while eating a late dinner.
Of course, there were several things very wrong with this assumption. The first (and perhaps most important) was that there was no place setting at the table. No dishes had been piled up in the sink and there was an absence of the smell of stirfried beef and vegetables, the White Wolf's signature specialty dinner meal. He may have been an exceptional ninja, but he had never claimed to be an exceptional cook. He had married his wife when he was just nineteen years of age, and until her death had never needed to cook a domestic meal in his life.
Then there was the fact that Hatake Sukumo had not been on a mission in close to three weeks now; he had shut himself away in his own home when a failed excursion had turned the entirety of Konoha against him. Once revered and respected as one of the most powerful shinobi of his time, he had now been reduced to shutting himself away in his own home while the rest of Konoha blamed him its loss of power and military instability.
The Hokage would not see him. The Elders were conspiring against him. Even the friends whose lives he had placed above the importance of his last terrible mission had turned their backs on him. It had never occurred to Sakumo to be angry or bitter about the fact that one disagreeable choice had demolished his legendary reputation and revealed Konoha's unflinching thanklessness of his years of patronage. This village was his home, but it was also a military organization and residing within its walls made him another one of their tools. No, the most pressing question on Sakumo's mind had been how much longer it would be until people begun to hate his son for the mistakes that his father made.
Blood gathered in a dark pool below his wooden chair, looking slick and black in the muted glow of the half-moon gazing curiously into the flat's open window. Young Hatake Kakashi's first thought as he beheld his father hunched over the table in the moonlight like a weary passenger waiting for a train under the light of a street lamp was that he looked peaceful. Death had brought him the same expression that Sakumo used to wear when his mother was alive.
The White Wolf's tanto - the compact, slightly curved short sword which he carried with him on his back at all times - had been run cleanly through his chest. Kakashi had no doubt about it: his father's own expert hand had driven the blade into his body at his sternum. It was his careful precision that aimed the thrust of the blade upwards so as to pierce the heart.
The tanto was a family heirloom, and Kakashi would have to pull it out of the White Wolf's cold body and clean the sticky, congealed black mess off of the blade himself before being able to call it his own. Perhaps Sakumo had thought of this, but it evidently hadn't concerned him. Death was a part of the world that Kakashi was born into, and he would no doubt be pulling blades out of many more dead bodies in the course of his career.
With trepidation that he never knew he possessed, Kakashi edged into the kitchen and approached Sakumo's body. He removed the black leather glove from his right hand before extending it, gingerly grasping the handle of the tanto. Closing his dark, heavily-lidded eyes and taking a breath to steady himself, he ripped the blade from his father's body. It made a sickening sound that reminded Kakashi of removing his fist from a jarful of healing jelly. He jerked his head away from the sound, and the movement flung a hot tear from its track down his cheek into his father's blood-soaked lap.
Stumbling a little in his eagerness to leave, to get the hell away, Hatake Kakashi backed out of the kitchen and flew down the hallway, lunging for the door handle and slamming it shut behind him. Once he was out in the open, he broke into a run, leaping into the treetops and jumping from branch to branch. The village was a blur of silence beneath him. He was a Hidden Leaf Ninja, concealing himself from the rest of the world.
Briefly, it occurred to Kakashi that he did not know what he was doing or where he was going. He decided he could deal with logistics when the numbness finally wore off. Perhaps, Kakashi thought, it would never wear off. He would be okay with that.