Many thanks to DyrraDegan for the beta, and MoiyaHatake for the pre-beta. They keep me on the right path.
Warning for Character Death.
CHAPTER 3: I am for you, though better men have failed.
Kakashi had expected to dream. He hadn't expected it to be so real.
The boy, a slight sliver of an ANBU, lifted the body of the Yondaime Hokage in trembling arms glowing blue with chakra enhancement. A choking sob broke from his chest, and then he went silent. Focused on putting one step, then another down the ruined street of their ruined village. Bloody flesh hung ragged across his back where he had deflected the demon's attack as it whipped a tendril of chakra toward his sensei. ...sensei...
They tumbled through the door in a mass of limbs and robes and pain. Blond hair brushed Kakashi's cheek and he was shocked that the scent lingered so strong even after the man was gone.
They lay half-in, half-out the front door and it was wrong, wrong, wrong. Kushina and the baby would be home soon and there were things to be done. Dinner...dinner to start, and tea. After dinner, they would talk; they liked to talk. And then Kushina would wink and say she was tired and disappear to bed and then it would be just sensei...sensei...
Kakashi climbed up off the floor and lifted his sensei's lifeless body. He kicked the door closed, took three stumbling, muddy steps, and fell again.
And this time...this time he would do something. He would follow Minato to bed without coercion. He would take off his mask, his hitai-ate. He would reach out and touch and curl up against the man, basking in his warmth...but, he wasn't warm...
Kakashi's arms lay limp and useless at his sides, fingers numb, chakra channels burnt out. As darkness closed around his senses, he pushed, pushed with his feet and snuggled against the man's too-still chest...should have told you...
He opened his eyes slowly, taking in his quiet surroundings. Village. Home. Safe. The dogs stirred, but Pakkun stayed blessedly silent, and he was glad for their company.
"Hatake, sit down! I am the Hokage." Tented fingers pressed against lips stretched thin in anger. "If anyone--"
"This is something I must do," he answered in low tones, nearly whispering, "I gave my word."
"So did I! Who do you think is supposed to be looking out for you?" Tsunade's hands slammed down on her desk and she glared up into Kakashi's single exposed eye. "Always a brat. Impertinent. You should know you're too damned valuable to use for something so—"
Wavering resolve solidified at the word use. "I am the only person alive who knows the jutsu."
"You could teach it to someone else!"
Iruka's face came to mind, the logical choice for many reasons, those mostly for his loyalty to Naruto. Kakashi uttered, cold and sharp, "No." His glare met hers, calling on years of practice, and they matched wills in silence.
Their contest ended with an audible pop, and the woman's entire body slumped, her sharp eyes dropped to the desk. "Fine," she whispered, the strong Hokage sounding at once vulnerable and broken and utterly unlike herself. Kakashi fought the urge to reach out to her. It was better this way.
A commotion outside the door drew them both from their internal struggles as the blond boy in question came barreling into the room. "What the HELL, Kakashi-baka?! You CAN'T seal the Kyuubi! The Yondaime gave his life to seal it the first time. Doesn't that mean you'll die if you do it?! No way! I'd rather…I'd rather…" Naruto's volume diminished as he faced the somber mood of his elders, the two adults aside from Iruka-sensei to whom he most closely related.
"You'd rather let the villagers die instead?" Tsunade's softened the words with a melancholy smile and gently ruffled the boy's hair before poking his forehead.
Kakashi's steel gray eye narrowed and met the wide blue ones of his sensei's only child. "Naruto, you are correct. He sacrificed himself to seal the Kyuubi." The jounin swallowed hard, willing back the heavy emotion bundled into such an admission. The trip to the Yondaime's house had amplified his memories, his...feelings for his sensei. Things he'd never admitted when the man was alive, the silence he could only regret after he was dead. They weighed him down, hurt worse than any physical ache. Kakashi couldn't imagine continuing to live like that. His fingers idly touched his sensei's letter, tucked safely into his vest.
Groping to escape his thoughts of the Fourth, Kakashi started over. "I've lived far longer than most of my peers. It's a fitting end, to die for the village and its future Hokage." Kakashi's curve-eyed grin didn't fool his companions, though Naruto smiled back through the pain, just as he had for years.
Kakashi cleared his throat before continuing. "Use this second chance to find Sasuke, Naruto."
"I-I promise, Kakashi-sensei." Kakashi turned away, his feet grudgingly moving toward the doors as he urged them forward, away from the betrayal that lurked just below the blond's smile. He only stopped when Naruto called out, "Hey, Kaka-sensei. I want to be there when you do the jutsu, and I want you to do it somewhere away from the village. If something happens…I…I don't want to hurt anyone."
Tsunade's eyes began to burn and she turned away from the all too familiar scene, differing only in that the roles were reversed. She remembered the young Hatake standing in front of the desk, leaning over it, begging that blond brat to let him come along. Of course, Minato could never say 'no,' even when it was the obvious answer. Kakashi had never been the same.
Kakashi would simply be renewing a pact with a shinigami, and would have preferred not to involve the boy at all, quietly slipping away to perform the jutsu, allowing the medic-nin to remove his body before Naruto ever found out. It wasn't a requirement that Naruto be present for the resealing; in fact, he'd been safely with Tsunade the first time. However, looking into blue eyes that tore at something deeper inside of him, Kakashi couldn't deny the request.
The Copy-nin sighed. "Fine, fine. Meet me one hour before sunset beside the gates."
He left Naruto standing in the doorway of Tsunade's office. The boy watched his sensei's back as he walked away, unashamed of the tears that fell from his eyes, uninhibited, flowed down whiskered cheeks, and dripped off of his chin to his chest, soaking his shirt.
A world without Kakashi-sensei… He couldn't imagine it.
Naruto watched Kakashi's fingers and hands fly through the seals required to perform the jutsu. He didn't pretend to understand what he was seeing and only began to realize that something was happening when Kakashi's eyes met his own and the jounin whispered, "I'm sorry."
The blond boy clenched his stomach as the Kyuubi's seal burned and writhed beneath his fingers. The demon fox's laughter pealed through his consciousness. It enjoyed seeing Naruto in pain; his tenuous bond with the creature made this obvious. It mumbled ugly, dark words about Kakashi, and the Yellow Flash who sealed him the first time. About petty humans and their insufferable self-importance. And it continued to laugh as Naruto squirmed and groaned under its varied attempts to block the seal's tightening restraints.
The pain spread to his head and the Kyuubi-vessel dropped to his knees, still close enough to Kakashi to see what the man was doing. One moment he was standing beside Naruto, mismatched eyes wide with surprise, and then he was lying on the ground, face down in the grass and soil, the gentle light of sunset dappling his motionless body. Naruto sat still, frozen in place. He's…Kakashi's…
Impossible.
"Kakashi!" The boy crawled over to his sensei, heedless of his own pain, gritting his teeth and wrapping his arms around the man. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is…this is wrong. You shouldn't have had to die. I'm sorry…I'm…I'm sorry…" Kakashi's tear-soaked mask and closed eyes betrayed nothing. "I-I..I'm Uzumaki Naruto and…and I always keep a promise! Kakashi-sensei…I-I'll find Sasuke! I'll s-save…"
He shuddered against the silver-haired jounin's body, collapsing across Kakashi's unmoving chest, exhaustion and pain overcoming his already fragile state of mind. As the first ANBU descended from the trees, Naruto slid into unconsciousness.