Yo! Happy New Years, guys! I hope this year is the best one yet!

Special thanks to: Elaine Weasley, Illuminated, VampireDoll666, Ice Night, berry5tz, Prescripto13, LilyVampire, and Nebelkind, who reviewed!

Just in case-WARNING AT THE BOTTOM!

025. Violent Colors
Twenty-two years old

Kakashi outlives every single person in his first ANBU unit. And the second, and the third. The fourth, they're not entirely sure, because nobody knows what exactly happened to Itachi. The council still thinks Sasuke has answers, and they constantly pressure and push and shove to question him. But Sasuke is young, still, too young to be subjected to any sort of questioning. And Obito fights with nails and teeth until they recede. Then Kakashi—and Asuma and Kurenai and Gai—step up when Obito is too weak, too delicate to defend the boy because fighting for his own life keeps him so incapacitated.

In any case, Kakashi outlives any new recruit to the point that he stops caring if people see him carrying his Black Ops cloak, and sometimes he forgets to untie his mask from his pouch after he changes out of his uniform. Asuma once saw him with his cloak folded over his arm and told him to please stop carrying his death veil around. People stare, and the Hokage reprimands him.

Kakashi doesn't really understand. His hair is not something that could be easily be confused to be someone else's. So he knows people are aware that it's him—the Hatake boy (man, now)— behind the Wolf mask anyway. No, Kakashi doesn't understand what the problem is, and he's too tired, too weary, to try.

Kakashi is twenty when the Hokage tells him to take it easy. To take a break, of sorts. And he is assigned missions close to the village, sentry duty around and inside the walls. Kakashi is a day younger than twenty-two when Sarutobi sits him down, makes him do some math, and, after Kakashi figures he's beaten every odd of him surviving in the field by almost three years, informs him he is to be retired from active duty.

When the younger man raises his hands to protest, the Hokage lifts his own and silences him without a word. To Kakashi, Sarutobi Hiruzen has never looked older, more defeated, than in that moment. This man who dealt with his student's betrayal with a grim expression but soldiered on knows what ANBU means to him, the escape it offers from knowing he killed one of his teammates, the pain he has put the other one through.

"The elders believe you are too much of a… burden on your teammates." That's why you survive and they perish. The Hokage doesn't say it, and he clearly doesn't believe it himself, but Kakashi still hears it loud and clear. He has heard it his whole life. "I believe, however, that you would be a very good… mentor… for the next generation."

Kakashi reels back, grabs the underside of the chair with tense fingertips, and shakes his head.

But the Hokage is patient. He explains the need they have for capable jounin, reassures him when Kakashi hands tumble over words to the point that he can just touch his forehead with the fingers of his right hand and then bring it forward, palm facing himself, thumb and pinky extended. 'WHY?'

The Hokage stops replying. He rests a wrinkled hand on Kakashi's shoulder and unties the Wolf mask in his place. He gives it to Kakashi, even though he's supposed to burn it along with all evidence he was ever there in the first place. Even after Kakashi secures the mask around his waist and the older man presses a thick folder into his hands, the Hokage says nothing.

When he goes home, Kakashi stares at himself in the mirror. His armor is tinged a permanent shade of maroon even though it is his newest one. He lowers his facemask, but he has scars there. Old ones that a sick, perverted man put on him when he couldn't tell him what a magnificent partner he had been. They widen his mouth gruesomely, and jag at the corners of his lips where they join matching ones on the inside of his cheeks.

He remembers not being able to eat solid foods for weeks after, until the wounds were completely healed. He remembers people yelling at the Elders because a mission at a whorehouse was not supposed to be assigned to a child of ten.

He puts the facemask back up and sleeps with it on for the night, even though it makes it a little harder to breathe.

There's a birthday party the next day, and Kakashi pretends to smile if just to please his friends and the small kids they herded along. He still hasn't opened the folder.

He opens it the day after that, though, because he knows he has to and he had just finished hiding his armor and uniform in a box that he never wants to open again, now.

There're names in there. Three names belonging to three children, along with three matching pictures, one for each child. There's also a note from the Hokage telling him where to meet them at a date set a month from then.

{…}

He gives up on them—Matsuno Eiji, Mukai Akira, Nakahara Kei—the second Obito explains to them why he's there. They pull faces at him, refuse to cooperate with his beginning introduction exercise, and they don't even do it together. They argue among themselves so loudly that even Obito flinches and looks back at him. Kakashi doesn't really want to give them another chance, but he figures the Hokage gave him these kids for a reason, and nods when Obito asks him if they should tell the kids to even meet them tomorrow.

Of course, the bell test is a disaster waiting to happen, and when they scream and accuse him of not being a real ninja, he is not even in the mood to correct them.

The report to the Hokage explains nothing, just gives the team a failing grade. There's not even a recommendation not to let them participate in the promotion exam again. He just wants the whole thing to be over and done.

Kakashi feels like an incompetent fool, but Hiruzen just smiles sadly and gives him a mission folder, with a warning that he's still in the jounin instructor roster for the batch of children that will graduate in half a year.

{…}

Obito worsens dramatically the day before he's supposed to meet his new prospective team. Kakashi comes to the Uchiha complex to find the older man passed out, chakra signature waning dangerously. White chakra is highly condensed energy that eats at everything that it touches, and it almost snuffles out Obito's own, reacting like it was a parasite to the poor man's body. In theory, it was supposed to work for protection, but the mix of chakras is bad, and Obito's body is not prepared for it.

Naruto is also ill—he's honestly what the medics think made Obito's reaction so particularly violent this time around—, needs bedrest, though he doesn't require any urgent medical attention, and the doctors refuse to let him stay at the hospital, so Kakashi is tasked with hauling the feverish boy around to meet the academy grads because the Hokage says there is no way to reschedule.

Kakashi is not sure why the Kyuubi's chakra is not healing Naruto, since it usually does the job with cuts, bruises, and scrapes. Still the boy is sick, and he can hardly give little Sasuke a couple of coins to take care of him for half an hour, not with his uncle in such dire condition.

So haul him to meet his team Kakashi does.

The make-believe genin stare at him when he comes into the classroom holding a sick seven-year-old, and he supposes he can't really blame them. They ask him if he's a dad, and Kakashi shakes his head. He sees the girl of the team recognize the little blond then, and she backs up with a frown. He shows them pre-written messages in his notepad that tell the children they should meet him at the roof, and then disappears.

By the time they do meet him, Naruto's sweat has seeped through his shirt, and Kakashi's sure there's drool and probably snot on his shoulder, but there's no outward indication of how much that disgusts him. The teens all look at the little boy with aversion, clearly having shared the fact of just who Naruto is, and they all look confused when Kakashi keeps giving them instructions on pieces of paper.

"Are you the disabled jounin my dad told me about?" The bravest, or the most stupid, of the boys asks, and Kakashi doesn't really want to nod, but does because yes, he's disabled, and he's still better than this brat's father, he's sure.

Still, Kakashi meets them the next day. He had wanted to dump Naruto on Kurenai. Hell, he would've been okay with Gai, but they're both busy and so he has to lay a sleeping, scarily silent Naruto down on the grass to show the rest of the children what it was he wanted them to do.

For genin, they're average at best. He can feel the smaller of the boys somewhere on the other side of the river, the taller one is nothing short of a beacon in the bush right in front of him, and the girl manages to disappear okay. She moves fast, too, because there's a tinge of her chakra on one tree and then it all but scurries off to the bush, next to Beacon-Boy, and then there's a flash of black and she's near Brat on the other side of the river.

They actually move together, and for that, Kakashi is pleased. He can deal with some rudeness, and he considers they might be smart enough to accept Naruto once he explains to them that their parents' hate is unfounded and ridiculous.

But then, when he's distracted by the boys actually synching their attacks, he feels something is wrong, and ANBU training takes over as he disappears on the boys and body-slams into Murakami Aiko as she tries to reach Naruto with her kunai.

The girl is hurt—really hurt. She's not very big, and she's only twelve to Kakashi's lean but heavy muscles and twenty-two years. Plus he might have coated his arm in chakra when he gave in to instinct. He can see right away from the way she writhes that her ribs are broken. But he still bends, grabs her, and pulls her up until her feet are not touching the ground.

Kakashi has seen the way Obito hisses threats. He knows it's effective. He can't do that, so he angles himself so the boys can't see him and lowers his mask, showing the terrified girl his scars and looking at her, releasing killing intent before dropping her and placing his mask back in place.

Naruto is picked up by shivering, adrenaline-pumped arms. The little boy feels it, but unlike most would do, he snuggles even further in Kakashi's embrace, and the man breathes. The teen boys are trying to help their teammate, and when they see him, he gives the team a thumbs-down and disappears in a whirlwind of leaves.

That night, he slams his report of a failing team on the Hokage's desk, this time with a full description of the events, and a recommendation (supported by half the jounin population) of never letting Murakami Aiko become a genin. He can't know if the boys were in on the plan, but this girl is dangerous if she was ready to hurt a fellow, defenseless villager just to advance in the ranks.

Kakashi is still holding Naruto, who is only slightly more lucid than he was when Kakashi thought the fever might melt the boy from the inside out.

Sarutobi actually volunteers to take care of Naruto for the night, but Kakashi just shakes his head and stays the night at Obito's hospital room, where Sasuke is still being an angry child but has stopped looking like an underfed zombie. He puts Naruto down to share the empty bed with a grumbling Sasuke, checks up on Obito, and places his own chair by the door to keep any unwanted visitors out.

WARNING: (Vague) mentions of sexual abuse

I hope you enjoyed the chapter, even with the bitter tinge. And I do hope you haven't gotten tired of sad because the next chapter is full of sad. I think 27 is happier. I think. I don't remember very well, though.