Disclaimer: Naruto is a Shonen Jump publication written by Masashi Kishimoto. I am neither Shonen Jump nor Masashi Kishimoto. If that doesn't say it all, I pity you for your lack of perceptive prowess, and strongly advise that you not pursue the way of the ninja.

~V~

- Chapter Twenty -
"Mistakes"

~V~

Hanare sighed, glanced uneasily up at the ceiling, and fidgeted with her skirt a little bit. She had to consciously resist the nervous urge to stand up and pace around the guest room in the Hokage Tower.

It was eight twenty-three in the morning on Tuesday—in a matter of hours it would be exactly a week since she'd first walked through the southern gateway to Konohagakure no Sato, and despite her resolve in going through with this arrangement (part of her still felt... dirty... for deserting her village like this), she felt like she was walking on eggshells in this place. She knew that of the few Konoha shinobi she'd encountered who had been briefed on her situation, very few actually trusted her. She supposed she couldn't blame them. To get where she was now, she had essentially sold out the Hidden Lock Village—she herself would be hesitant to trust a shinobi who had already proven themselves untrustworthy in the past, whether she was the one they'd betrayed or not. And it didn't help matters that she happened to know how to read minds via eye contact... most of the ninja she'd come in contact with over the past few days had very pointedly only looked her in the ear, or the chest, or the forehead at best, if they looked at her for more than a few seconds at all. It was something she'd have to let time wear away at, she supposed.

Fortunately, the secret would be dispensed only to Jonin-level shinobi, members of the ANBU Black Ops, and ninja with whom Hanare would come into direct contact. (As a matter of little consequence, Anko Mitarashi herself had been "officially" briefed on the situation less than half an hour after she and Naruto parted ways the day before.) The civilian populace would be blissfully unaware of the former spy's underhanded past, and if there was ever an upside to having been trained almost exclusively as a spy, it was that Hanare was in no way lacking job skills. All in all, she thought, the prospects that awaited her as a civilian citizen of the Village Hidden in the Leaves were brighter than anything she'd ever had to look forward to in Jomae, whether the village's ninja trusted her or not.

And even if the entire village were against me... I still have...

She already had friends in this village—Naruto Uzumaki being the first to come to mind. Naruto, who was almost single-handedly responsible for this new start at life. Somewhere in the back of her mind, though she knew Naruto would never accept any kind of repayment anyway, Hanare wanted to do something for the boy to show how much she appreciated the kindness he'd showed her... that she had witnessed almost first-hand the hard life he'd lived because of that abomination sealed within him only heightened this desire.

Ibiki Morino and Inoichi Yamanaka were friends she had honestly never expected to make, but as it happened, the two of them were quite pleasant to be around when they weren't in "all-business mode." The warm smile on the face of that scar-faced devil when he'd greeted her at the start of his first Ocular Mind-Reading training session, in particular, had been so surreal that she'd been inclined to think it was some sort of genjutsu.

And then there was the man she hoped would accept her as something more than a friend...

Two knocks at her door snapped her out of her thoughts, and she stood—almost "jumped"—to her feet. "Kakashi-kun, is that you?" she called as she walked to the door.

When she opened it, the masked Jonin with the silver hair and cock-eyed headband raised a lazy hand in greeting and said, "Yep." With the majority of his face concealed behind his mask, he seemed to be smiling with his exposed eye.

Hanare smiled back, forcing her nerves to the back of her mind—another perk of having been trained as a spy... particularly the part where that involved seduction missions... was that when push came to shove, she had no trouble overcoming any sort of unease or reluctance when it came to men. It occurred to her that this was the first time she'd made use of that perk for her own personal reasons. Somehow, that revelation felt... satisfying. Freeing.

"Thank you for agreeing to show me around," she said. "I don't think shopping for an apartment would be any fun if I had some suspicious supervisor breathing down my neck the whole time."

Kakashi shrugged the thanks off, a nonverbal it's nothing response, and said, "So, did you have anything in particular in mind?"

"I'd like to find a place close to Naruto's home, if possible... and if you don't mind, close to yours," Hanare said, unable to stop a faint pink tinge from creeping onto her face at the second admission.

"Well, Naruto and I don't live very far apart, but he does live on the poorer side of town," Kakashi said, ushering her through the door. "You may not like the accommodations available in the area."

"I was raised in a cave with nothing more comfortable than a cot for furniture," Hanare replied with a light smile. "Even the cheapest apartments this town has to offer would be a step up from that."

The two walked at a leisurely pace down the hallway of the Hokage Residence as they spoke. From the dull light filtering in through the windows, Hanare guessed the sky was clouded over at the moment.

"What was it like?" Kakashi asked after a few moments of silence. "If you don't mind telling me about it?"

"I don't mind," she said. "We... were all taken at birth from our clans in the village, so I don't remember who my parents were or what they looked like. The caretaker in charge of me was actually the elderly shinobi who met up with us on the bridge during the hostage exchange—from the sound of it, Naruto might actually have saved his life that day, it's almost kind of funny... he was a real hardcase, you could say. Very no-nonsense, give-your-life-and-your-all-for-your-village kind of man. There wasn't any nurturing or encouragement to be found in that place. You either toughened up or you broke completely."

"Hm," Kakashi thought. "There were times when shinobi training in our village had to be similarly harsh, but that was only ever during times of war, or times when war seemed to be around the corner. Even then, Konoha values have always emphasized the idea that we should all regard each other as family. Was there no such sentiment among the Lock Ninja?"

"I don't know what it's like for the ninja of the village itself," Hanare said. "We spies were trained as a kind of underground society, and they emphasized the need to bury our emotions. For the profession, I understand it was necessary, but it was... hard. Especially for me. When I was younger, my instructors would often berate me for crying or trying to seek companionship amongst my fellows."

An underground society, Kakashi mused. That sounds almost like Danzo's ROOT division...

"On some level I understand why it was necessary," Hanare said evenly, almost harshly. "The Land of Keys survives almost exclusively on the espionage skills of its ninja. I recall hearing rumors during my previous missions that even the Land of Earth sometimes commissioned Jomae for espionage missions, particularly when they didn't want to risk their own shinobi getting caught spying on lands that could muster the clout to demand reparations..."

"Did you ever work for Iwa?" Kakashi asked.

"No, not me. Our division was more like... I suppose you can compare it to Konoha's ANBU. We completed missions at the behest of the village leaders, and no one else. I think it was the ninja of the village itself who would handle the commission work, but again, I've never been exposed to the village. So that's just guesswork on my part."

"Well, all in all, I can't blame you for deciding to take the Third Lord's offer," Kakashi said. "I believe loyalty in the face of one's emotions to be a vital part of a ninja's life, but... it's because I feel so strongly about the village in the first place that I'm loyal to it at all."

Hanare looked over to Kakashi, who was gazing thoughtfully up at the ceiling as the two strolled down the stairs to ground level.

"The masters back home..." she said, pronouncing the last word uneasily—as if the intent and the word itself didn't mesh at all in her mind, "always emphasized loyalty as a form of self-sacrifice. One of the first lessons they drilled into us was that we should take pride in our service to the Land of Keys in spite of its distance from us."

Kakashi sighed. "The Shinobi Rules of Conduct in their barest form," he said. "Ninja as tools for their village, and nothing more. Many villages take that ideal too far."

"Hmm..." Hanare agreed softly.

"There was a time, when I was younger," Kakashi admitted guiltily, "when I would have agreed with them."

"You? Really?" Hanare said, her disbelief evident.

Kakashi nodded a farewell to the receptionist as he led Hanare through the lobby of the Hokage Tower and then down the set of stairs that connected the business wing of the Tower to the outside world.

"Yes," Kakashi said uncomfortably. "I was young, immature, and my father... well..."

"You don't have to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable," Hanare assured him, but he brushed it off with a light wave.

"No, it's fine," Kakashi said. "Besides, you've confided more than enough in me, so if you're willing to listen to my story, I'm willing to talk about it."

Hanare then said, "You can tell me anything, Kakashi-kun."

Kakashi considered that statement for several seconds.

"My father was the White Fang of Konoha," he said bluntly.

"You must have been proud to have such a distinguished ninja for a father," Hanare said.

"On the contrary," chuckled Kakashi darkly. "I was ashamed."

"Ashamed?" Hanare exclaimed incredulously. "Whyever would you be ashamed of that?"

"Because the circumstances surrounding the White Fang's death aren't widely known," Kakashi said. "Here in Konoha, however, he died in disgrace... because he abandoned his mission in order to save the lives of his comrades."

Hanare, who had been raised among the most covert operatives in Jomae, knew better than most just what that sort of betrayal might mean to one's fellows. If she had ever done such a thing on one of her own missions...

"He succeeded in saving them," Kakashi said. "But the price was the mission, and his honor. Even the comrades he saved shunned him after that. So father entered a state of deep depression. He turned to drink... eventually, he died. And me, his son? I looked on my father after his death with the same scorn as everyone else."

Hanare wanted to reach out and place a comforting hand on Kakashi's shoulder as he spoke, but she only turned a sympathetic eye on him instead. Kakashi was watching the clouds as he walked. The two of them continued down Konoha's main street, and when Kakashi turned a corner, Hanare turned with him. At this point, her hunt for a place of residence was nearly forgotten.

"Over time, that scorn became an almost unbending dedication to rules and regulations," Kakashi said. "I swore to myself that I would be the shinobi that my father failed to be. So for a time, the mission was the only thing that mattered..."

Kakashi turned his eye to Hanare, and said: "Then I was assigned to a team, under the command of Minato Namikaze, the man who would go on to become this village's Fourth Hokage."

Hanare turned her eyes back to Kakashi, registering surprise. "You were taught by Naruto-kun's fa...?"

Hanare caught herself, glancing around nervously, but the street they were on was relatively deserted.

"You know about Naruto's lineage?" Kakashi said with a frown. "I thought you said you'd purged the information you took from Inoichi."

"I did," Hanare said. "This isn't something I learned from Inoichi, it's... something I learned from Naruto-kun."

"Naruto knows? Who told him?" Kakashi asked.

"I don't know if anyone told him," Hanare replied. "He just... knows. It was in his mind. I think he might have just figured it out on his own."

"The resemblance is pretty striking..." Kakashi murmured, mostly to himself. When he considered it, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Naruto, especially in this past week, had proven himself to be both observant and intelligent, and even if he weren't, it would probably become bloody fucking obvious to anyone with half a brain and an ounce of familiarity with the Fourth Lord within a few more years.

"I need to have a talk with Naruto later," Kakashi sighed.

"Yes, you do," Hanare said, almost with the air of an insistent wife. "If you were close to his father... that boy needs to know he has people who care about him, Kakashi-kun."

"I know," Kakashi admitted. "The Third intended to tell him of his heritage when he either came of age or attained the rank of Jonin, but this is sensitive information, Hanare. Minato-sensei, he had a lot of enemies, particularly—"

"—in Iwagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Stones," Hanare finished as if reciting a line from a history textbook. "I know. Konoha's 'Yellow Flash' is well-known, and part of my training as a spy was to familiarize myself with the histories and political relationships of the various nations. I won't speak of it to anyone, you just... surprised me. What of your team, though?"

"My team," Kakashi echoed, and his tone said he almost regretted the return to the main subject. "Two people who are still very dear to my heart. Both of them eventually died during the Third Shinobi World War. One of them was a kunoichi, Rin Norita, a talented medical ninja whose skill was nearly such that she would have been known as a genius in the field if she'd had the time to develop further. She had feelings for me, and I knew that. I was too dedicated to the 'job' to care."

The longer Kakashi spoke, the more he sounded as if he were scolding himself. The two were walking down a familiar road now, and Hanare realized it was the same road down which they'd traveled on the way to the park a week before, on the day she'd confessed her feelings... and met Naruto.

"Then there was Obito Uchiha," said Kakashi. "A member of a prestigious clan, yet something of a misfit. His grades had been the lowest amongst all of his classmates, whereas mine were the highest. And in a clan who so prided themselves on their infamous ocular kekkei genkai, a shinobi with a detrimental eye condition was particularly frowned upon. He had to wear goggles because his eyes would dry out if exposed to the wind, and he constantly had to use eye-drops, even during missions. On top of that, he was a crybaby, and he was always making stupid excuses for showing up late."

"That sounds familiar," Hanare noted. Kakashi answered with a snort and a shake of his head.

Kakashi glanced at Hanare and said, "He also had a crush on Rin. Between that and the difference between our skill levels, he looked at me as something of a rival. So as you can imagine, our team dynamics were a bit on the dysfunctional side for a while. Fortunately, we had an excellent sensei who was able to whip our team into a cohesive, cooperative unit, but our personal differences persisted for years."

Hanare asked softly: "What happened? What changed?"

"The Third Shinobi World War happened," Kakashi said simply. "And we, as Minato-sensei's team, we'd distinguished ourselves quite a bit by then. I myself was regarded as something of a genius, and to tell you the truth, I was definitely full of myself because of it. I graduated from the Academy at the age of five and made Chunin when I was six... perhaps, even for a 'genius,' I was too young not to let my accomplishments go to my head."

"Achieving the rank of Jonin during the war certainly did nothing to help that," he added. "But on the first mission that sensei trusted me to lead, I made the first real mistake in my life. To this day, it's one that I haven't been able to forgive myself for."

Hanare said: "What... mistake?"

"We were ambushed during our mission, and Rin was taken by the enemy," said Kakashi. "Obito insisted we rescue her. I argued that our mission was vital. As the team leader, I chose to abandon Rin for the sake of the mission. Obito refused, and so we went our separate ways."

Hanare's eyes were sad; Kakashi's eye was self-loathing, focused on the ground at his feet.

"But before we parted, Obito told me something," Kakashi said. "He said he believed that the White Fang was a true hero. He also told me that in the ninja world, while those who disobey the rules are trash, those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash. The idea wouldn't leave me alone, so eventually I... turned back, and went after him."

"You changed your mind in the end, right?" Hanare said. "Maybe you were wrong at first, but—"

"That's what cost us so much," Kakashi said. "Obito was on his own because I insisted on going through with the mission. If I'd went with him from the start, he might still be alive right now."

Hanare frowned, not sure what to say to that.

"I showed up in time to join in the fight," Kakashi said. "But in the ensuing struggle, just after Obito managed to at last awaken the Sharingan—you know, he'd been telling me for months that he'd surpass me once he unlocked that power, and of course, I'd always scoffed at that... we managed to get to Rin, and free her from the enemy's genjutsu, but during the escape the enemy collapsed the cave on us."

Hanare covered her mouth. She knew where this was going.

"Rin and I made it out," Kakashi said. "But Obito was caught in the cave-in. So he was pinned beneath the rocks, fatally wounded, as we at last became friends... and he died there."

Kakashi reached up to his face and tipped up his headband, turning both of his eyes on Hanare. Hanare was mesmerized, almost literally, by the sight of the eye in that left socket: blood-red in color, it bore a trio of black tomoe marks around the pupil. A long, thin scar ran vertically down his face, directly through his Sharingan eye.

"I lost my eye during the fight," Kakashi said. "As he lay dying, Obito told me that because he hadn't given me a gift to celebrate my promotion, he wanted me to take his eye. He asked Rin to perform an on-the-spot operation to transplant it into my own eye socket. She complied. Sometimes I still wonder what was going through her mind at the time, and how she kept herself together well enough to perform an eye surgery while her comrade lay dying underneath a ton of boulders. Sometimes I think I'd have nightmares if I knew the answer to that question."

Hanare reached out a hand and, hesitantly, put it on the man's shoulder. Kakashi sighed, pulled his headband back down, and said, "After that mission... which we did actually accomplish... I eventually became known as 'Kakashi of the Sharingan' across all five of the great nations. I'm known and feared as the Copycat Ninja, who acquired and managed to duplicate over a thousand techniques. In Konoha, I'm known as a genius and sometimes a hero. In some of the other villages, they feared me to the point where they'd given their ninja orders to kill me on sight. Obito Uchiha died in obscurity; the only acknowledgment of his contribution, as far as I know, is on the memorial stone near the training ground where our village's traditional teamwork exercise, the 'bell test,' takes place."

"Kakashi-kun..." Hanare said softly. "It still hurts you this much?"

"This, and all the other friends I've lost in the time since," Kakashi admitted. "Obito's death was one I blamed myself for, but I thought I could make it up to him by protecting Rin. By the end of the war, though, she was dead, as well."

"Did you... love her?" Hanare asked. A moment later, she forced back a wince, hoping the question wasn't too sensitive.

"Honestly, I never had time to sort out whether or not I could return her feelings for me," said Kakashi. "When Obito died, I told her how he felt. She tried to tell me how she felt about me, but I shut her down before she could finish. I told her, 'I was once the kind of trash that would have abandoned you.' I... couldn't work up the courage to find out whether she forgave me for that. And with the war going on, there wasn't really much time for personal matters."

Hanare squeezed lightly at his shoulder, then let her hand drift back to her side.

"Minato-sensei helped me out of my depression after the war," said Kakashi. "But eventually, I lost him, too."

"You still have his son," Hanare said. "And the village your sensei gave his life to save."

Kakashi smiled beneath his mask. "Yes, that I do. Sensei, he... I remember when he told me that he was going to be a father. I'd never seen him so happy before. When he died, I withdrew into my own little world, lost myself in my work. Naruto's... godfather—"

"Jiraiya of the Sannin, right?" Hanare said gently. Kakashi looked up in alarm.

"Does Naruto know that, too?" he asked. "How?"

"His favorite book," answered Hanare with a smile. "Back when he first found it, he might have chalked the name of the main character up to coincidence, but..."

"Once he figured out who his father was, knowing that his father's teacher wrote a book starring a character named 'Naruto' makes the next step an obvious one," Kakashi sighed. "Why do I get the feeling that he might just be a little too smart for his own good?"

Hanare laughed, and then said, "Go on. What about his godfather?"

"Jiraiya-sama... pushed his godfather duties off on me," Kakashi said sheepishly. "But for my part, I was too mired in my own grief at the time to want anything to do with it. I, along with the other ninja of my generation, we were all held back from fighting the Nine-Tails, so I was nowhere near the battlefield when sensei... you know. It was, for me, the last straw. The last of my precious comrades had been killed while I could do nothing to stop it. So you could say I ran away from my duty. I pushed Naruto out of my mind. On some level, I think I was fooling myself into thinking that Hokage-sama would take care of him well enough without me."

Hanare winced, and said, "I know it must hurt to hear this said aloud, Kakashi-kun, but... I imagine your loved ones wouldn't like to know that your grief caused you to make yet more mistakes."

Kakashi let out a frustrated breath and whispered, "Yeah, I know. I only thank whatever gods might be listening that Naruto grew up the way he has in spite of it all."

"So make it up to them," Hanare advised, "by being there for Naruto-kun now."

"I intend to," Kakashi said.

Hanare's mouth twitched upward in a small grin as she said, "You can start by showing up on time from now on."

Kakashi laughed and said, "I'll have to sleep on it first, but... maybe I will."

They walked on in silence after that, until they reached the first of the apartment buildings in the general area in which Hanare wanted to make a home. The first she dismissed as too pricey, for she didn't want to impose on the Hokage (who would be covering her living expenses until she found herself a job) more than was necessary, but Kakashi thought it was because she wanted to live nearer to where Naruto was. Kakashi had no idea exactly what she'd seen when she'd looked the boy in the eye and seen his life flash before her own eyes, but whatever it was, it was clear to him that she felt a strong need to support him.

As they left that first building, Hanare slipped her hand into his—hesitantly, but at the same time with a sense of certainty. Kakashi, for his part, was grateful to her for listening to his story. He wasn't sure, exactly, why he'd chosen to tell it—in retrospect, it was probably the most impulsive thing he'd done since he'd resigned from ANBU and decided to take on a squad of Genin. But he felt better about it, now.

Talking about it had made it all feel a little less heavy.

~V~

Author's Note: I hadn't actually intended to focus this chapter on Kakashi and Hanare, but my original chapter (which was essentially a training episode) just didn't interest me all that much, so I did this instead. I did feel like the Hanare arc was missing a resolution on their end, too. So here it is, the last chapter of the Hanare arc. For real this time. (No, seriously.)

Author's Note #2: Alright, because obviously some of you didn't read the previous Author's Note on the subject, I'll spell it out. Hanare is NOT an original character! She is a character taken from one of the filler arcs in the Naruto Shippuden anime, namely a one-episode flashback story that takes place at some point before the Chunin Exams (Sakura still has long hair). The Hanare arc is based on this episode, and although that episode was undeniably filler, this arc is actually quite important to the grand scheme of this fanfic.

Right, now that we've cleared the air about that, I welcome your opinions (both positive and negative). Just stop saying that Hanare is some kind of OC. Because she's not.