Chapter 1: Loss
Kakashi Hatake hadn't slept soundly in years. His past wouldn't allow him to. Kakashi wasn't one to hold onto things for too long, but his overwhelming regret about the events that befell his team under the leadership of none other than Minato Namikaze were heart wrenching. Even as he tried to let them slip away his unconscious would always find a way to bring them up in his sleep to haunt him.
Within his dream he stared into the eyes of his teammate, Rin, as she whispered an apology to him, tears streaming down her cheeks. His arm had pierced her chest, running her through, having used Chidori in an attempt to save her, but he hadn't made a mistake by hitting Rin with this brutal assassination jutsu, rather she had moved into the path of his attack. Ever since the loss of their teammate Obito, she was never the same. Depression had wreaked havoc within her mind, as she barely even communicated with her teammate and team leader since their loss like her mind was elsewhere, mourning, while her body just went through the motions of ninja life. She had been captured by an enemy shinobi in an ambush which she hardly struggled against leaving Kakashi to make an attempt at rescuing her; however Rin had made up her mind. Without so much as a hint as to what she would do, Kakashi rushed her captor in a surprise attack that would have led to the enemy being impaled by his arm coated in pure lighting chakra instead resulting in Rin taking the hit. Her apology didn't even register in Kakashi's ears as he was too shell-shocked by her actions to do anything other than stand with her dying before him, his eyes wide, pupils dilated, in abject horror.
"NO!" Kakashi screamed as he woke. The anguish in his voice reverberated off the walls returning to him and reaching his ears reminding him of the anguish in her voice as she spoke her solemn apology in his dream. He sat up, stiff as a board the second his mouth opened for him to release his cry, eyes wide in panic, both uncovered, as his sharingan spun rapidly. Looking at his arms held before him in fear as they seemed to be drenched in blood, only for him to blink and relax a bit after realizing it had just been a dream.
That same damn dream.
He buried his face in his hands and leaned forward, slouching his back and easing the tense feeling out of his body. He released his pent up emotions as a single tear slid its way between his fingers and onto his bed sheets while he exhaled a deep and heavy sigh. No one had ever seen him this weak, not even his sensei that he trusted with his life had seen him in this state. 'I'm never going to get over it am I?' he questioned himself, as his mind drifted from his thoughts and back to reality.
Reality which, in all honesty, wasn't that much better at the moment. Even someone without the heightened senses of a jonin could tell that something was very wrong. Kakashi could hear screaming coming from seemingly thousands of people as the sound of explosions followed by a tremor rocked his meager apartment. This snapped Kakashi out of his daze as he bolted to the door and swung it open to reveal a sight which would also stick with him for the rest of his life whether he knew it at the time or not.
The cloudy night sky emblazoned with hues of orange, red, and yellow from the massive amounts of fires Kakashi could see in his peripherals made him unsure of whether the clouds were made of vapor or smoke although this was not his main concern at the time. Before him, towering over the Village Hidden in the Leaves stood the Kyuubi no Kitsune in all its terrifying glory radiating its crushing power eliciting a twinge of fear in the grizzled shinobi's heart. Facing the demon stood an enormous toad with a miniature figure standing atop its head, both looking ready to defend the village from receiving any further damage. Kakashi only knew of two people who could summon toads, much less toads of that size, and the possibility of who could be standing on the toad's head was narrowed down to just one when the toad leaped towards the Kyuubi crashing into it shortly before both disappeared in yellow flash.
"Sensei…" Kakashi whispered to himself before taking off in a dead sprint. Covering a distance of a mile across the village in just less than twenty seconds was not fast enough for Kakashi's liking as he had to avoid crashing into villagers as well as change his path in the streets. Swiftly moving from the ground to the rooftops in order to reach his destination as quickly as his body could take him still wasn't fast enough for Kakashi even having avoided the obstacles below him. Opening the first of the forbidden gates caused Kakashi's next step to crack the roof he pushed off of as he turned into a missile headed in his intended direction. He wouldn't even appear as a streak in the sky to the untrained eye as he was moving too fast to even be seen as an afterimage.
'I wasn't there for Obito…I failed Rin…I can't lose sensei too…' Kakashi's determination pushed the ninja as far as he could possibly go so that he could get to where he knew his sensei would be, and this time he promised himself that he wouldn't be late. His resolve unbreakable saw to the fact that Kakashi arrived to the scene of the chained Kyuubi thrashing about under the control of Kushina Uzumaki, Minato's wife, before the Yondaime Hokage could begin his plan to seal away the Kyuubi. As if finally realizing what good it would do that he was there rather than elsewhere, Kakashi froze in place, only able to spectate as the Hokage argued with his wife over what to do about the suppressed threat.
Kakashi watched as Minato took his son from Kushina's arms and laid him on the ceremonial table that appeared in a puff of smoke. Kakashi watched as Kushina continued to protest against the actions of her husband desperately torn between holding back the Kyuubi and stopping the Hokage. Kakashi watched as Minato began his jutsu that would be known as the Reaper Death Seal connecting his chakra to the demon's to be sealed away into his own son. Kakashi watched as Kushina's hold on the Kyuubi slipped and it made an attempt on Naruto's life only for both of his parents to intercept the claw meant for him. Kakashi slumped to his knees with tears freely falling down his cheeks and staining his facemask as he watched the Kyuubi disappear into a seal on Naruto's stomach, Naruto's parents slump down and collapse on either side of Naruto as they embraced his form, and life leave their bodies as they spoke their last goodbye's to their beloved son.
"No…" Kakashi strained to speak. His throat had tightened along with his chest once he fell to his knees, causing his breathing to be labored and erratic. He limply reached out to the forms in the clearing as if being able to reach them would make a difference. His desperate attempt at soothing his battered soul failing as he let his arm fall back to his side. Kakashi's breathing shifted from labored to large heaving sobs as the reality of the event hit him like a punch to the stomach. Right before his eyes he lost the last thing he had, right before his eyes in the same way he lost everything else.