Disclaimer and notes: I don't own Naruto. Naruto isn't usually something I participate in fandom for, but a friend of mine kept showing me despressing pictures of Yondaime's team, so I was inspired to write this little piece. As a side note, I'm a firm believer that Yondaime is Naruto's father, so that's worked into the story just a little, but if it's proved to be otherwise later on, I'll just reword that bit... The setting starts just after the Kakashi Gaiden.

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Legacy

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There were four of them once, so very long ago.

He cursed himself for not being there the day the first one died. He cursed himself for not staying behind to quietly observe the mission. He should have been there. He could have saved him.

But no, he had been needed elsewhere. There was a war going on, after all, and things were hard on everyone. He shouldn't have even been acting as teacher and leader for a team of chuunin, but he couldn't help wanting to protect them just a little longer. He was needed elsewhere, he'd been told. He was always needed elsewhere. But those three kids needed him… And sometimes—just sometimes, he told himself over and over until he believed it—he needed them, too.

His world was dark with war and death and duty, and they were his light in that darkness. They kept him going when he was outnumbered, outwitted, outmatched… After all, if he died, who would look after those kids? Jiraiya? No, Jiraiya was also needed elsewhere, and he couldn't get away with suddenly picking up a trio of chuunin if his former student met a less-than-pleasant end.

He'd always known he would have to let them go some day. He couldn't protect them forever, and with Kakashi pushing himself to become a jounin as soon as possible, he'd known that "some day" would come far sooner than he'd like. The day the thirteen-year-old was promoted, he knew he couldn't put it off any longer. Kakashi would lead his students—no, they weren't his students any more, he had to keep telling himself. It was Kakashi's team now, he wasn't a part of it any more, he was needed elsewhere.

He cursed himself for not being there. He had saved the lives of four jounin elsewhere, but it cost him the life of one chuunin, one of his—no, Kakashi's—chuunin. It had cost him Obito, and it had very nearly cost him Kakashi and Rin as well. He forced himself to be content with the fact that he had gotten there in time to save two of his three students.

But still, he cursed himself.

With Obito dead and Rin promoted soon afterwards, they were a three-man jounin team, but he was still needed elsewhere. He had just as many missions alone as with his students—his teammates. Somehow, though, he didn't mind as much as before… The team that had once been his sanctuary was lifeless now. Rin was always cheerful, but it was just an act, a hollow attempt at pretending that everything was normal, that Obito hadn't died. Because maybe if they pretended hard enough, they could convince themselves for a moment that Obito was just running late again.

But all it took was one look at Kakashi's eye—Obito's eye—to remind them that things weren't normal; Obito was gone and he wasn't coming back. One day, Rin stopped looking at Kakashi entirely. One day, Kakashi started wearing his hitai-ate over his eye—Obito's eye—and Rin was able to meet his eyes—eye—again. And one day, the Third Hokage, his teacher's teacher, announced he was going to retire.

He was a little surprised when he was asked to ascend to the rank of Hokage, but he was honored to accept the title. As Hokage, he could accomplish things the way he couldn't with a kunai. He could end wars and prevent them from starting again, so that thirteen-year-olds wouldn't die because their teachers were needed elsewhere. As a jounin, he could only protect those who were in front of him. As Hokage, he could protect all the people of Konoha.

He still went on missions with Kakashi and Rin whenever his duties as Hokage allowed him to get away. Things were different again, now that he was the Hokage, but they were for the better. The tension that had plagued them before was diminished; Kakashi had been floating from team to team for various missions when Yondaime was busy and Rin had been taking care of the injured at the hospital, and it seemed that being apart had been good for them. They acted almost normal around each other again. Kakashi was maybe a little more open, Rin was a little quieter, and Yondaime was a little more distracted, but it was better than before. Time had numbed their pain.

Peace came, in the form a tentative truce with Iwagakure, but not before it was too late. Another of the three children who had become so dear to him had fallen. Rin had felt she wasn't doing enough good by staying in the village hospital so she'd gone to the front lines to tend to the wounded there, but the team she'd gone with had been ambushed by a particularly nasty group of S-class jounin. They never even found the bodies. Peace came, but not for Yondaime, and not for his last living student. Kakashi talked of joining the ANBU. Yondaime buried himself in his work.

The peace he had fought so hard to achieve hadn't even lasted long. Barely months after the truce had been called, a new threat beset Konoha, armed with claws and fangs.

Four jounin in exchange for Obito. Peace in exchange for Rin. He knew something—someone—he held dear would end up being sacrificed in order to save the village that he loved. He sent small teams out to stall the nine-tail fox while he tried to find an alternative, some way to stop the beast without losing everything.

There was one way.

He told Jiraiya about his plan, and his teacher tried desperately to stop him. He couldn't abandon Konoha like that, he'd said. He couldn't leave them with nothing. Yondaime simply smiled at man who was like a father to him and went out to face his demons with his newborn son tucked safely in his arms.

When he summoned Enma, he asked if in exchange for his own life, the fox could be sealed in the baby he held. Enma agreed.

Jiraiya caught up to him just before it started, with the retired Sandaime in tow. Why, they asked, why was he doing this? He would stop the demon, but abandon Konoha, leave the village without a leader, without a Hokage.

He turned to them and smiled his last smile.

"The village is my family," he said. "I'm doing this to protect them. And even though I'll die here, there will be a new Hokage who will inherit my will and protect Konoha in my stead."

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Sometimes Kakashi wondered why he was the only one to survive, why he was the one placing flowers on their graves. Obito shouldn't have died. Rin shouldn't have died. Yondaime shouldn't have died.

A shinobi's fate was cruel.

It was so hard to watch Naruto sometimes. He was Obito and Rin and Yondaime all rolled up into one over-exuberant young man.

Sometimes, Naruto reminded him far too much of what he'd lost to the slow decay of time. But sometimes—just sometimes—Naruto made him think that maybe Obito and Rin and Yondaime weren't so dead after all. As long as the village they'd loved so much still stood and as long as the things they stood for were protected, their spirits, their wills lived on.

Some things are left as a legacy, so that what's been lost can still survive. Naruto was that legacy. He was Yondaime's son, yes, and Yondaime's legacy, but he was also Obito's legacy, and Rin's.

And somehow, that made everything better.

-Fin-