This was a spur of the moment one-shot... hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the characters within. Woe is me.
Innocence. An interesting and alien concept, one that Kakashi finds intriguing... and thoroughly useless. He has always likened it to the glass orb that had been in his family for generations, a clouded ball as big as his fist that held swirls of colored clay and was etched with intricate designs, painstakingly engraved and beautiful to behold. Forbidden from touching it and promised pain beyond imagining if he ever did, Kakashi had stared at it for hours when he was younger, entranced by the foreign symbols that meant nothing to him. He once asked his father what it was actually used for.
To brighten what would otherwise be a rather dark world, he was told with a gentle smile, tinged with something that Kakashi would only identify years later as a touch of irony. Like the heirloom, innocence is, to him, wondrous and fragile. It seems to be one of those qualities that is so delicate, so endearingly ignorant of what lies in store for it, that you can't help but smile and wonder if you were ever quite that happy... or stupid.
On the other hand... it won't help you kill your opponent. It will not aid you in a battle where the bodies of comrades fall around you like cut flowers. It won't do anything, except hinder your every move and end in you grossly underestimating the world. It is, again, like his family heirloom. Beautiful. Foreign. Fragile.
Useless.
And yet, for some unfathomable reason, people cling to it. Like Naruto, who is only beginning to grasp the seriousness of a shinobi's duty. Like Sakura, who believes that love will conquer all. Like Sasuke, who has had so much stripped from him, and yet naively believes that revenge will fill the hole in his heart.
Like this boy standing between him and Zabuza, eyes curved in gentle half-moons as he dies for his hero, for his dream. Smiling at his fate as Kakashi tries to pull back, tries to stop himself from marring that beautiful face, but is too late, too late, and he can feel Haku's heart between his fingers – a warm, wet ball, one that gives a final thump and then shudders to a halt as electricity courses through his veins.
There is a moment of silence as Kakashi realizes what he has done, and guilt is a fire in his blood that boils and scalds his insides. He sees Haku's eyes go still and staring like a glassy pond, and in his mind's eye sees also the day he came home from the ninja academy to find his father hanging in shame from the ceiling rafters, the precious ball that had been so carefully constructed smashed to a million pieces on the floor – broken beyond all hope of repair.
It is a strange ache in his chest, to think that someone so pure would give up their entire existence to one who used them as a mere tool. In a vague, unsettling way that he doesn't really want to think about, it is far too similar to the children of Konoha, who devote themselves to excellence in the hope that they will be recognized, who give up their innocence unwittingly for something they do not yet fully understand... and possibly never will. For though Kakashi consciously knows that the way of the ninja is essential to keeping the peace, that they keep the world from falling apart, he stands after the battle on the bridge with Haku's blood staining his hands, and wonders how this could have happened. How the system could fail so completely, to allow someone of such grace and warmth to throw themselves in front of scum unworthy to touch the hem of his robe.
Kakashi thinks of all the children who have died for something that they did not comprehend – for the children in the Great Ninja Wars that took up arms against people they didn't know, to protect their village and a way of life that would have only destroyed them anyways. He looks over to Naruto, who is tracing the thickened whiskers on his face with a look of horrified awareness. To Sakura, whose hand is over her mouth as she gazes at the bodies of Haku and Zabuza. To Sasuke, who is deftly plucking a needle out of neck, fingertips lingering over the pulse that is again coursing just under his skin. It has already begun... he can see the cracks in their naivety, ready to shatter if any more pressure is applied.
Innocence. Hah. It would be funny if it wasn't so goddamn tragic. Kakashi kneels at the shore underneath the bridge and submerses his hands in the freezing water, watches the blood gently drift into the swirling current.
"Kakashi-sensei?" A timid voice asks as his fingers begin to numb. He looks up to see Sakura gazing at him with subdued eyes.
"Yes?" He says shortly, not in the mood to talk or listen to her complaints. He realizes, to his distinct displeasure, that his voice is shaking, and quickly clears his throat to cover it up.
"Do... don't you think we should bury them?" She says quietly, and continues in a whisper. "I mean... it was us, who... you know..."
Killed them. Stole the precious few moments they have in this world. Just say it, little girl. Break yourself before I have to do it for you.
But she doesn't say it, and he can see the desperate need for assurance in her eyes, the longing for a grounding point.
"No." Kakashi says, and the face of the boy he has destroyed rises in front of his eyes to taunt him. "They are officially missing-nin. Someone from their village will be here soon to collect and dispose of the bodies." His voice is back to being clinical. Good... it's easier that way.
"Oh." Sakura says in an even smaller voice, and Kakashi has to stop himself from frowning as he watches a tear form in the corner of her eye before she rubs it away furiously. She is a smart girl – she knows what disposal of missing-nin entails. The two shinobi will be thoroughly dissected to learn of any new secrets they may have come to possess, and then burned in an incinerator.
He turns away so that he doesn't have to watch that cracked layer of innocence slide away and scatter to the winds. "Let's get moving. We need to report the mission results."
She follows silently behind him, like a ghost. None of the genin speak on the way back to Konoha, and Kakashi doesn't disturb their thoughts. The innocence will be stripped away in layers over subsequent missions, until they are like him... someone who can kill a child, and yet still find the will to move his feet, to keep living and breathing even as someone more worthy lies cold under the ground.
That night, he dreams of the swinging feet of his father in the cold, dark apartment they shared, and the glass fragments of the heirloom that cut his hands when he tried to pick them up. The scars on his palms have never fully healed.
**
Three days after he kills the boy with those trusting eyes, Kakashi drinks himself into unconsciousness. When he wakes, he finds himself sprawled in the street, shirtless and back scraped bloody by the rough cobblestones. Asuma is leaning over him, concern and understanding darkening his eyes. Neither of them speak as Kakashi is helped home by the other man – there is nothing to say, nothing that will make it better. This is the life of a shinobi.
And innocence has no place here.