A/N: Ok….crazy plotbunny caught me and shook me by the ears until I had to put it down at 12am on a school night! Aiee…Erm…background info: This fic is set sometime in the hypothetical Naruto future when Konoha is under siege by Sound. It contains an absolutely illogical KakashixShizune pairing…Please Read and review as always…

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. My fic has absolutely no association to Kishimoto and co. It is pure unadulterated crap…and the characters are extremely OOC. Read at your own peril. Flames will be fed to my fire-breathing dragon of a brother who chain smokes at home and gives me asthma attacks…

Chapter 1-As Always it starts with Angst/Tragedy

Part 1

Kakashi panted hard as he stopped atop one of the branches. Something trickled down his forehead. He could not tell if it were sweat or blood. He was too far gone for that by now.

Pain flared as he moved his right hand, forming seals with it. He summoned Pakkun and ordered him to patrol the border Kakashi had just left. Sound had broken through yet another barrier. Konoha had to be notified.

But he could not leave the place undefended. Correction, they, could not leave the place undefended. He glanced back at his squad mates who had just arrived. Asuma and Kurenai were breathing heavily, their arms laden with two Konoha Chuunin. Kakashi had been the front guard, meant to take out any enemy nins in front, clearing a path for the burdened pair.

Normally, in combat situations such as these, the injured were left behind. But these shinobi were not injured, merely knocked out form the effects of some sort of poisonous gas. Besides, it was either bring them along, or kill them and dispose of them completely. The enemy had ways of acquiring information even from dead bodies.

And Kakashi was sworn to protect. Anyway, a more jaded part of his mind whispered, we didn't have time to burn their bodies.

So here they were. Three Konoha Jounin, all suffering from the effects of the previously mentioned poison. 2 of them extremely fatigued from carrying the Chuunin. The other…

Kakashi looked down at his blood-soaked uniform. The Chidori was a gory, blood-spattering technique. But usually, he didn't get any blood on himself. That was why it was such an efficient technique.

It was a silent night. There was no moon out tonight. Even the heavens did not wish to witness this day. He crept across the floor, his katana drawn. The victim swirled to meet him. Both men had heads of grey hair. One young. One old. The youth raised his sword and was knocked back by a strong swift parry. He grimaced as he noticed the man's attire. Samurai. He would have to use other means. The wolf felt Obito's eye throb as he gathered chakra at it. Scarce seconds later, the man was dead, killed by a move he had barely seen. The wolf removed his hand from the other's chest. Blood poured out copiously. He looked at the spreading patch on the floor for a moment. He turned to his blood-splattered hand, staring in twisted horror at it. His uniform though, was speck-less. The wolf idly wondered if the state of his soul was reflected by his hand, or his uniform. The sound of a flipped switch alerted him. He left the way he came, by the backdoor. Creatures of the night rarely entered by the front.

Kakashi returned to the present slowly. Kurenai was looking at him weirdly. "What?" he asked, woozily making his way over to where she and Asuma had put down the other two. Yep, the blood was definitely all his then. The problem with being point, was that you got into a lot more scrapes and expended more chakra than the others. It was also why Kakashi had decided to take point.

While he was no megalomaniac, he knew very well that he was the strongest of the three of them. Still, he had his weak points too. The Sharingan sapped most of his strength and the number of times he had been forced to use Raikiri was beginning to take their toll on him. But he would have to go on. There was no other option. Pakkun returned, barking furiously. Break time was over.

Kurenai and Asuma got up sluggishly. Kakashi counted 15 chakra signatures in their immediate vicinity, and more approaching. They were surrounded. He cursed wildly as the Sound nins descended on them. He blinked furiously as his vision blurred.

Thrust. Parry. Look for openings. Parry. Parry. Crimson blood sprayed. Was it his? He didn't know. His opponent slipped and he dived under, creating a red fountain of his own. But he had no time to see it. His eyes burned desperately. Suddenly, he was left alone and glanced to his left, seeing Kurenai trapped in a corner. Asuma was no where to be seen.

Kakashi didn't think. He didn't plan. He simply reacted. Ninja who don't protect their friends are worse than trash. It was not his own code. But it was the rule by which he lived his life. Kurenai was more than an acquaintance, she was a friend. And she needed his help.

So he plunged into battle, throwing caution to the wind, going in with his kunai out. Minutes, (or was it seconds?) later it was done. The floor was scattered with enemy dead and miraculously, the Konoha nin were all still alive. Kakashi wanted to scream, cry, collapse on the ground. He wanted to do something, but he couldn't.

Asuma and Kurenai stood a little to his left, both locked in embrace. So he turned away, leaning down to the two unconscious Chuunin to check their pulses. In the fight, the Sound shinobi had been too intent on killing the other three to pay attention to two who were already incapacitated. He breathed a sigh of relief – the pair was still alive.

"We have to move and break for camp", he said softly. The original plan had been to make for Konoha straight. But with the hasty, burdened flight and the major skirmish that had just occurred, none of them were in any shape to travel. Kakashi stood up, wincing as pain suddenly gripped his left leg. He would have to bind it later; hopefully, it wasn't broken.

Asuma released Kurenai and faced Kakashi. The normally hearty man's face was drawn and pale from blood loss and he looked like he was about to fall over. Kurenai looked no better. Kakashi knew he had made the right decision.

But Asuma had always been more concerned about the village so he opened his mouth. "Kakashi, we have to – " the other never gave him a chance to finish protesting, he merely held up a hand and glanced surreptiously at Kurenai, implying that it was for her sake.

Asuma loved her. And so he stopped. Love, in Kakashi's eyes, made you weak. It made unshakeable men like Asuma change their minds. And it allowed men like Kakashi to manipulate others, twisting them one way or another. Love was not worth it.

"We make camp, dress our wounds, catch some sleep and start out when the sun sets", he dictated. The other two nodded. Hatake Kakashi was, after all, their senior. He had been a field commander when they had been earning their stripes as Chuunin. It was the painful truth though, that he was a year younger than both of them. But they didn't mind. Not really.

It was because Hatake Kakashi, while having earned a reputation for being as cold as the winds blowing in Antarctica, had also earned the reputation of always bringing his comrades back with him. So they trusted him, and admired him and even teased him on occasion. But he was never their friend. Not really.

The trio found a secluded clearing and started a fire before beginning an injury assessment. Bruises galore, cuts of every kind, from tiny nicks that stung like ant bites to long deep gashes which showed flashes of white bone and made you want to shriek. But such were a ninja's occupational hazards, and so they said nothing, merely dressing the wounds and stitching them up as they best could.

"I'll take first watch", he said in a tone that brooked no protestation. He had a feeling that if he fell asleep, he might not wake up again. So he sat up high on a tree branch as the other two dozed on the ground. Weariness blurred his vision. He did not make a good watcher this night.

Finally, it was Asuma's turn and Kakashi dropped to the ground to awaken the other before lying down on the grassy ground. Drowsiness overtook him and he gracefully acquiesced to it. But it was momentary. He was plagued by images of those two embracing, of them kissing, of the way they often held hands. He tried to shake it off but he couldn't.

Love was folly. Love exposes you to weakness. Love brought pain. But love, love also gave companionship. Love gave you comfort. Love let you lean on another. And Hatake Kakashi desperately wanted that. He wanted to stop being in-charge all the time. He wanted to feel another's skin against his own. He wanted…Kakashi realized with surprise…he wanted to love.

Battlefields were, of course, the worse places to discover such a fact. It was also one of the most common places this longing crept upon soldiers. Kakashi supposed that it had something to do with being so close to death. Even for shinobi, for whom death was an almost daily occurrence, war time brought the Grim Reaper closer. Kakashi shuddered. He had had the occasion of catching a glimpse of the Death God once. It had not been pretty.

He was being shaken awake suddenly, voices calling his name. So he opened his eyes and rolled over, ignoring the ache that had somehow spread to his entire right leg. It was poisoned. He could feel it.

Asuma stood in front of him with Pakkun by his side. He snorted. Pakkun never ever brought good news. "Let me guess? More bad news?" the bitterness overlaying his tone made the other jounin raise an eyebrow. Kakashi was never this cynical. He was always cold, always distant. He always had a mask on. The mask, it seemed, was cracking.

Pakkun brushed it off though. He was used to the wolf's prickly moods and bouts of cynicism. "Sound's coming through from the north, gaki. They're heading straight for the borders and one of the parties are heading straight here. They'll be here, five minutes max. You have to get yourself and the rest outta here. And you gotta alert the village", the nin-dog advised.

"We know", Kakashi replied. He dismissed the dog. They wouldn't need him; not if they were going to run again. Asuma had already woken Kurenai as Kakashi gathered his thoughts. He couldn't run, of that he was certain. His leg which had been throbbing for hours was now inflamed and he had had to hack the boot strings off so that the blood supply was not cut off.

At the same time, the other two could not run that fast – they were as tired as he was and injured in several places as well, not to mention the aftereffects of the poisoned gas. They needed to get out and he couldn't. They needed a diversion. He made up his mind quickly. People had often assumed that Hatake Kakashi was out for power. They thought he was trying to restore glory to his family name by using a stolen organ. They could not be further from the truth.

The reason Kakashi, like many of his other comrades, had not turned missing-nin was because of two promises. One he had made to a friend who had died for Konoha. The other he had made to a sensei who had sacrificed not just his life, but everything else as well for the hidden village. To out it quite simply, he lived for the dead. And that, while not being healthy for his mental state or his romance life, meant that he had no other ambition in life or any particular affinity to life.

He had been born to be a ninja. He had lived a ninja's life from the age of 5. And he would die a ninja's death at the age of 29. It was the way things had to be. And he was alright with that.

It wasn't that he wanted to die. It was just that he didn't want to live either. So he told them the plan and overruled their objections cruelly. He was the senior. It was his game. And he brutally reminded them of it.

And if Kurenai looked at him with pain in her red eyes, or Asuma glared at him for seemingly betraying their friendship, Kakashi pretended not to see. The dead could not feel pain after all.

So they left the Chuunin behind. And he stayed. He took out a kunai and cut the boot off his swollen leg before removing the other as well.

It was time to rumble.

A/N:Ok...so that's done. If you want more please review! Eh...if anyone was wondering why I skipped the action...well...this fic is romance/angst/drama...its about two lonely people (kakashi and shizune of course...) who find each other and all the difficulties and sappiness that accompanies their story...yeps...so as always, please read and review!