Title: Guilty

Summary: A little look into Kakashi's head.

Disclaimer: It's isn't mine.

He's a guilty man, he knows that.

He knows that one day when all his acts are weighed against him this one event will cancel out whatever good he might have done.

He remembers how they all looked forward to this day. How they laughed and rejoiced in the anticipation of it alone.

But they're gone; they've slipped the mortal coil.

He knows deep in his being they'd want him to stay, to rejoice even without them.

But he can't stay.

He can't bear to see his eyes in the child's face.

He can't bear to hear his voice in the child's cries.

He's left him, they've all left him.

Tonight he'll join the ANBU.

He wishes that the child were enough to keep him here. To keep him wrapped tight in his humanity.

But it's slipping and as he hands the child over he knows he's betraying his truest friend, his closest comrade, and the only man he's ever respected enough to call sensei.

He's a guilty man.

He's as scarce as shadow, but on one of his visits to the town he hears that the child's finally graduating from the academy.

He feels as guilty now as he did twelve years ago.

And so he shocks the village when he volunteers for a Genin team

The Sandaime is a man of tradition and they all know who will be put on his team,

They ask him how wise it is.

They all know the child is his father's son.

He thinks he'll be able to handle it.

He doesn't realize until that first meeting how striking the image is.

He can't look at the boy without regret.

Soon he has trouble looking at him at all.

He pulls the other boy closer, hoping to push him farther away.

He finds someone else to teach the boy.

The boy proves his parentage by finding someone even better than that to teach him.

The new teacher rejoices in the boy's likeness to his father.

He mourns that he could not.

His own failings and shortcomings have separated him from the last remnants of his past.

He's a guilty man. He knows that.