Feel

Summary: Hokagé Naruto visiting his sensei.
To make the reader feel is every author's common goal.
Spoilers: Erm, Naruto…Hokagé? Will that ever happen? It'd better, even if Naruto just wanted to get back at Gaara. (heheh). Well, this is in a future twisted timeline; I don't really care where, just a simple story. Kakashi ending badly, of course. Oh, and Tsunadé, you ask? I think I stuffed her in a closet for this one…Again, just a simple story, folks…
Sticky Note: … (I forget, is insanity a good quality, or a bad one?)
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. And I'm kinda sad about that.
Genre: Tragedy/Angst/Humor—because no story is remotely good without it.


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Kakashi had both eyes closed. Finally, he'd learned how, on his own, of course. He was listening to the beautiful, ordinary Konoha kind of day. Simply sitting cross-legged on the floor in a room holding windows he couldn't see out of anyway, he was hearing Konoha's laughing, young citizens, the stepping of feet on the market streets by adults, bickering genin, the trees, and the sound of chidori inhabiting them. Kakashi also picked out the soft steps of a young girl somewhere in the building coming near him. He was never one not to know his immediate surroundings, even if he was blind. A little part of him wondered why he was still here, in this place. But in this place, he was reminded of how the same girl resented his unwillingness to let down his mask for anything, even when Obito was crying Kakashi's own blood. She was a kind girl; a young medic ninja he once guessed as to having short brown hair and a beautiful smile…However, she'd told him he was only (hopefully) right about the smile.

To him, the door creaked loudly when it opened. Kakashi opened the useless eyes to the floor. "When will you fix that damned creak?" he asked.

The girl sighed. "I've told you, Kakashi-san, the door makes no noise. You are imagining this."

The girl had not stepped far into the room; Kakashi wondered. "Why are you here?"

A smile was in her voice, "I'm surprised you are still here, as you have a habit of leaving when no one is looking."

He said nothing.

"Kakashi-san, you have a visitor, " she informed.

"Well he's not behind you. Go back to the door, please, and tell him-"

"He said he has to see you."

Kakashi turned his head, glazed eyes now shifting to stare low, by the door, at nothing he could see. "Miss-"

"I will fetch him. Don't go anywhere."

Kakashi heard between the lines: All the windows are locked even though that never stopped you before.

She'd left the door slightly open, as if taunting him to leave the only other exit. The loud clapter-like footfalls soon faded away; a part of Kakashi the least bit curious since he did not receive visitors often. A guess told him Gai, but Obito hummed, obviously thinking differently. Obito started to cry, as usual. Blood found the edge of Kakashi's mask; it would follow the line to meet his ear and neck.

Kakashi did not register the pain, no matter how much Obito tried to make him feel.

The sharpened sense picked up two pairs of steps now. Kakashi did not decide to leave, and yet he did not want to commit himself to stay, either. A blinded scarecrow waited like a blinded scarecrow. His eye and the bleeding one moved with his head to look to the side, discerning the deepest parts of his messy silver haired blindness: still Kakashi.

The girl stopped the visitor from entering further, though knowing he'd try to peek in. "Kakashi-san," she said ruefully. From a hip pouch, she took a familiar white bandage over to him.

As soon as he felt a forceful touch, he waved her off carefully, as any blinded man could do. Kakashi let a hand feel around on the low table beside him. On his own he found his hitai-até, again shooing away another touch. He tied it around his head, Obito forbidden to see Kakashi's shades of blinder and blindest. He was not surprised to hear the girl's voice so close, herself looking upon a masked profile. "I will have to call a doctor again," she said quietly, Kakashi registering her as speaking normally. The girl rose up, and Kakashi turned to the general direction of the door, knowing that later he would not let himself see any doctor of any kind.

The girl was halfway to the door when she said this: "I will leave you two alone."

Before she left, Kakashi would swear that she must have half-bowed to the man, which left him the least bit confused. Amusedly, he wondered if perhaps Sandaimé was coming to see him as he'd once done when Kakashi was very young, if he'd ever been that way. Kakashi was partly right; it was a daimé…of some kind, at least. He'd known this by the sound of no doubt a white cloak that came brushing the wooden floor…then stopping abruptly when the door closed—Kakashi only postulating as to why she always had to slam it so hard, creaking all the way, top hinge to bottom.

Naruto saw it was still Kakashi. The hokagé had to remember to breathe; his heart skipping a beat. Naruto seemed to have lost his voice. Light from the windows glowed that familiar blonde, spiky hair. Naruto had found that he had not much liked the hat. His blue eyes squinted, feeling pain at his former sensei's condition. Naruto guessed there was probably a word for that, but he wouldn't know it. Maybe later he'd ask Sakura.

Kakashi was still confused, looking blindedly, still his level low, a lone eye trying to see something not there. Damn blindness. "Whoever you think you are…why are you here?" he said, sensing the man's hesitant attitude; Kakashi believing himself to still be a threat if he tried hard enough, which was true as Gai once found out.

Boyishly, Naruto clenched at his clothes before his chest, feeling so much empathy.

Kakashi's lone eye traveled to the other side of Naruto, slowly it narrowed, Kakashi barely aware that underneath the Sharingan, a little part of his mask was another color. For sight's sake, his eye involuntarily squinted—not at all changing the blind hazed nothingness scenery. "Who are you?"

Naruto was close to crying. He found a fragment of his voice. "Sensei…"

Kakashi's lone eye stopped forming the glare. He blinked, surprised he'd been called sensei. Daimé…it came to him: who else but Naruto, the hokagé. Kakashi clarified: "Naruto-kun…?"

A heavy tear left Naruto's left eye. It pulled to the floor just like a drop of rain. He swallowed. "Sensei…K-Kakashi-sensei…" Naruto suddenly had no idea what to say. The hokagé did however feel the smile in his former sensei's voice, softly saying his name again. On the sleeve of his cloak, Naruto wiped his eyes. The strongest shinobi in Konoha found his legs to be in working order again as he walked forward, sitting in front of his former sensei, close; a blinded scarecrow not looking at all in the right places for his blue eyes. "Sensei," Naruto said, the scarecrow's single gaze now looking through Naruto himself, lost in haze. Naruto meant this normally, even casually normal, but there was a quiver in his voice that refused to leave. "How are you, sensei?"

It was as if he hadn't heard the question. "Naruto-kun…how are you?"

The blue eyes grew wider, an expression only the young Naruto could muster. He looked down, a hand wanted to bunch up his clothes; instead reaching out for his former sensei's hand. Kakashi let him take it. Damn blindness. Naruto's heart skipped a beat again. "I'm…fine, sensei—"

"And how is Sakura?"

"Sh-she's fine too-" Naruto stopped, tears welling up.

And even though he knew, Kakashi asked anyway, politely, "And what is the weather like today?"

Tears rolled down Naruto's cheeks. "K-Kakashi-sensei; it's been fine. Everything's been fine." But you.

But he was still Kakashi.

A blinded scarecrow, but still Kakashi.

"Naruto-kun," said the scarecrow. "Don't cry."

After initial shock, again the surface of young blue-eyed wonder, Naruto's bottom lip curled in; he took a sharp breath, crying and sniffing a second later. He struggled to keep his gaze on a man who could not gaze back.

"Why are you so sad, Naruto-kun. Perhaps you've realized Sakura won't marry you?"

Naruto cried. He hung his head and sobbed.

"Don't look away," Kakashi looked into his blindness, hearing everything-Naruto's loud sobs in his ear, loud sobs that to normal people should be normal ones. "I told you that once, didn't I?"

Naruto blinked up, his head following. "Y-yeah. I know."

"Well, then."

"K-ka…sen-sei…"

Kakashi continued to ignore Naruto's deafening voice. "Naruto, it's ok. Sakura will always care about you."

Finally, Naruto said an indecency learned strictly on the battlefield before his broken-hearted pronunciation of sensei.

Naruto had finally come to realize the full depth of his former sensei's flawless adherence to shinobi rule number twenty-five. Naruto narrowed his eyes, tears escaping them; his voice steady like an hokagé's should be. "Kakashi-sensei, how are you?"

Kakashi blinked; a tear fell.

Naruto straightened and practically flung himself on his former sensei. Naruto gripped him in a tight hugging, so utterly tragic way. The hokagé did not cry aloud, no, Kakashi did that part. They were sobs muffled first by his mask, then Naruto himself. If Kakashi'd ever wanted to, there wouldn't be much to wipe away from his face by the time he'd ever stopped.

Both of Kakashi's bare hands found Naruto, his left one searching up higher to ruffle that soft blonde hair. Kakashi had almost forgotten how close people could be as he felt the familiar bright yellow, spiky straw that ran so close in Naruto's family. Naruto must have looked exactly like his father, and even if he didn't, Kakashi chose to believe that anyway. Because Kakashi is still Kakashi. He always was, and always will be. Obito stopped crying…blood, tears, anything…Kakashi feeling enough.

Slowly, Naruto pulled away. "Kakashi-sensei-"

He caved: "Please, Naruto, not so loud," He felt the mask would stay in place. (Unless, of course…)

Naruto had the expression of a cat truly sneaked up upon, he blushed; Kakashi hearing this in is much quieter, normal to Kakashi, apologetic voice: "Sorry sensei."

Kakashi's eye curved closed, happy. "To think I am the former sensei of a hokagé."

"Kakashi…sensei. You'll always be that to me—to us. Dattebayo." Naruto smiled, definitely Naruto.

Strangely, Kakashi heard it quietly, like it had been spoken.

Kakashi-sensei wondered why there were still tears behind his eyed smile, and none behind Obito.

"Sakura is going to get married," said Naruto. "And, well," Naruto was blushing very cutely. "I, uh…don't quite know who she's picked yet."

Kakashi laughed, head lowering so he could gaze at nothingness beneath his eye.

"Oh and Kakashi-sensei, I have students now."

Kakashi stopped smiling, as if Naruto could see beneath the mask anyway. The image of Naruto training three bickering genin pierced through Kakashi. Naruto was oblivious. "They're ok, but the way they keep snapping at each other-it's so annoying! Two of them really just go at it-"

"Two of them-" Pain…? "-are right here."

Naruto blinked. "Huh…?" Naruto searched his sensei, finding tears from only the lone eye, Kakashi's eye.

"N-Naruto-kun…" Kakashi was shaking.

"H-Hokagé-sama?" the girl said.

Both of them had been oblivious to the girl, that young medic min who'd entered a minute before.
Reluctantly, Naruto turned.

"Hokagé-sama, you are needed."

Naruto looked back to his sensei who had tears on one side and blood on the other, a sight he'd never imagined to imagine possible.

"I'm sorry Hokagé, but it's urgent."

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, "I promise to visit you later…Dattebayo."

Kakashi heard no smile even though there was one.

Naruto stood up.

Kakashi-sensei said nothing; still.

Naruto's body moved, his eyes-blue eyes-refusing to look away. The girl did not speak; she clasped her hands together, not wanting to tell the hokagé to hurry up. Finally, Naruto moved away. He looked to the girl and thanked her. Naruto looked back once more, then passed through the doorway, the white cloak making no sound.

The girl saw Kakashi's eye was closed; pain.

Promptly, she closed the door.

Kakashi did not know this, for he heard no damned creak.

The girl walked to him, taking the spot the hokagé had been in. He let her remove the hitai-até.

Kakashi opened his eyes.

It hurt like hell.


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By Untimely Reginence

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Author's note: I'll sex up the sequel.

(…Just kidding, obviously…) :)