Don't own Naruto, or even worse Kakashi. Or Yamato… waaaahhhh!
READ AND REVIEW, PLLEEEEEEEAAAASSSEEEE!
Warning: Spoilers for the newest manga!
One shot.
Only One Left
Out of 60, only 1 lived.
How bad I felt – knowing that there was nobody for me – that I was the only one to live. What did I have to survive that they did not? What drove my body to survive, to live, to grow?
I have searched for the answer for so long. Even as far as going into ANBU – where my inheritance has proved most useful.
The gifts of the First Hokage.
One day, I had been walking to my small house, when I had bumped into him.
Kakashi-sama.
He's an old timer who does odd jobs now and again, when his expertise calls for it. ANBU used to be his old home, before old Sandaime deemed it time for Kakashi to share his knowledge.
I never worked with him – I was still a struggling Chuunin back then… but still –
His eye smiles – it curves in a happy crescent – as he raises a hand at me.
I stop.
"Yo! It's Yamato, right?"
"Ah."
"Drink?"
It's rare for him to be so friendly. We sit together, he pulls out a mission scroll, and I understand.
We are to be partners for an S-rank.
After we finished off the band of missing nin, he bandaged my arm expertly and then allowed his hand to be tended to.
"I heard that you're the famous Yamato – the only child to survive out of those experiments. I can see why," he said.
For a moment, I don't know what to say.
It sounds like a compliment – but that a curse should be described this way…
I try to smile.
"I hear that you're the famous Copy Nin – the only non-Uchiha to have a Sharingan."
"Haaaa…. It was a gift born out of pain."
He stares up at the stars.
"Most gifts are."
Most gifts are.
He smiled again, very quickly.
"But, I see it as a gift for Konoha. It's why we do this fucked up stuff every day of our lives, right?"
Most gifts are. It's why we do…
And I saw that Kakashi-san is wise. Still, it nagged me.
Why only me?
Kakashi-sama had found an answer to his life.
But how could it true for me?
"That's easily answered, I guess. For you." I grinned at him, and hoped he wouldn't guess at the pain.
"It can be true for you, too." Kakashi said. "I often wondered why it was me. Why I wasn't the one to die? Why wasn't I the one fall? What made me survive? But it's about the burning love of Leaf – old Sandaime – he spoke the truth."
"Mmmm…"
I stood up and glanced at the stars peering down through green leaves overhead.
"We gotta get going," I turned to him. "In time we'll be…" I stopped.
"Home," he finished softly. "Funny. I haven't called it that for an age. But it's true right?"
And I wondered how it could creep up on me like that – the realization that I HAVE been lucky. After all, that was why I fought, wasn't it?
Could it be that easy? To live for love? Impossible.
Even now, on this bridge, facing an enemy that will tax my strength, I still do not know.
This enemy.
Orochimaru and his right-handed man. Kabuto.
Orochimaru, the one who helped – the experimenter, the creator – he stands before me. In some sick way, I recognize it. He is my father. Ironic. It burns deep down – and as Team Kakashi turn to me, they are uncertain.
Why did you survive?
I can see it in young Sakura's face. Perhaps she's the only concerned one, because only she, as a medic ninja knows, what it means to splice a gene and grow a soul from it. Sai's face says nothing – but then, he is incapable of feeling anything – or so he says.
What do his unfathomable eyes say… I cannot tell.
And Naruto. He's surprised – but a moment passes – so swiftly and then he's accepted it and moved on. Perhaps he understands.
I see that Kakashi has passed on the answer. It gives me strength to know – I wish I could tell him – I hope I will be able to tell him. That he was right.
We survive for Leaf. We live for love.