Sakumo Hatake could remember that horrible day as vividly as he could the day before today.

He'd just come back from an assassination mission and had cleaned himself up in a pond along his way home and had picked flowers for Karin, hoping for some cuddle time with his two favorite people in the world he'd taken his time coming home and quickly walked up the steps to the porch and opened the kitchen door and had froze automatically at the scene before him.

There had been Karin, in her favorite outfit, her hair tied back like she liked it when she was fixing their meals, her pale grey eyes fixated on their infant son who sat on the floor partially under a table that they kept against the wall. Kakashi was dressed in a silvery blue outfit that had a rip or tear in it along the seam of one of his shoulders.

Kakashi was crying. And Karin, who was normally such an attentive and loving mother- was just staring at him with a peculiar look on her face as her fingers tightened around the knife in her hand.

She didn't even notice Sakumo was there. Didn't even seem to care that he was there even when he slipped into the kitchen and set the flowers down on the table and asked in a worried tone. "Karin? Karin what's wrong?"

Again she didn't even look at him. Didn't even acknowledge him. She just looked at Kakashi for a moment then without any provocation she lashed out and kicked him. Her foot catching Kakashi in the side and send him rolling across the floor where he hit the wall and let out an ungodly wail.

Karin started towards him, raising the knife a little bit as she went and Sakumo did the only thing that he could. He crossed the room and placed himself between Karin and their son and attempted to talk her into putting down the blade before someone got hurt. But there was no reasoning with her.

He tried seeing if someone had put a genjutsu on her. Tried to restrain her and force her to drop the blade.

She stabbed him three times in the lower back, dangerously close to his internal organs and he tried desperately to fight her off. He pushed her back as hard as he could but the waiflike woman wouldn't budge. It was like she had suddenly gained the stregnth of five men. She pushed him back. Much to his dismay, and almost came a hairsbreath from cutting Kakashi's fragile little body in half before he managed to thow her.

Time slowed down to a snails pace as he watched her sail through the air and hit the kitchen table where he'd left her flowers, she rolled and fell off of the edge. Toppling the table onto it's side and just lay there.

Sakumo counted the seconds, then second turned into a minute and he looked down at Kakashi who was sitting up now, his little face red and tear streaked and he had his thumb in his mouth and was looking across the room at the table. Deciding that his son could do without him for a second Sakumo went to check on Karin and dropped down to his knees beside her when he saw her laying face down on the floor.

Thinking that she was merely unconscious he started to turn her over so that he could pick her up and then grab Kakashi so that he could take them to the hospital to be checked out when he turned her over onto her back and let out a horrified scream when he saw that the knife that she had been holding was buried to the hilt in the center of her chest, her eyes were open and glazed and she wasn't breathing.

He sat there with a devastated look on his face, just staring blankly down at her. Unsure of what he should do. Part of him wanted to die. To just lay down there on the floor next to her and will himself to stop living.

He felt the trickle of tears slip down his face, soaking his mask and reached out and closed Karin's eyes as he felt Kakashi's presence and turned his head just enough to see his son sitting next to his mother's feet, his little hands against her ankle and he tried to shake her.

Sakumo's maternal instincts kicked in and he reached out and picked Kakashi up and ignoring everything else stood up and walked out the door and ran to the hospital where he handed Kakashi off to a nurse after telling her what had happened and asking her to take care of him while he left to do something.

And after wringing a promise from the nurse that his son would be okay and in one piece once he came back, he felt relieved enough to leave the hospital and returned home where he buried his wife and cleaned up the kitchen and informed the Hokage of what had happened before going to get his son.

He didn't return to the house for almost a month. Choosing instead for he and Kakashi to stay in a hotel until he felt he could stand to return home. He'd always had questions about what had prompted Karin to attack Kakashi and himself. Had always wondered if he could in some way have prevented her death by simply knocking her out or something.

He blamed himself. And rightly so, he was the reason Kakashi would grow up without a mother.

Over the passing years Sakumo tried to make up for the lack of Kakashi's mothers presence in his life by making sure that he spent every moment that he could with his son. He taught him about their clan, the history of the village. He taught him games to pass the time when he was bored. He taught him to read, write, do math, science- He taught Kakashi philosophy, and politics.

Everything was fine for the first few years, though Sakumo started to notice that Kakashi would always show up at the dinner table with bruises. However instead of getting worried he chocked it up to boy's being boy's and left it at that.

About three months after that he started to blackout. He had no warning, no idea what had happened. He could have been doing house work one moment and the next he was standing in the woods or in Kakashi's room, sometimes he'd have a little bit of blood on his fingers and sometimes he would feel this peculiar sense of satisfaction.

He never suspected that like his wife, he was a carrier for a genetic disorder that would lead him to attack and wound Kakashi in the attempt to murder him.

It wasn't until about two months ago, after Kakashi's tenth birthday when Sakumo finally seemed to realize what was wrong with him.

Sadly it was also the day that Kakashi caught him trying to slit his throat during their family dinner.

Honestly Sakumo had been so-so distraught by the look on Kakashi's face that he had dropped the steak knife he'd put against his throat and he'd run out of the house as fast and as far as he could.

Part of him disbelieving of what he had been about to do while another part of him all but screamed at him to finish it. To kill his son.

After that Sakumo had taken steps to assure that Kakashi was safe from him, whether he was lucid or not. He had Jiriaya and his student the Fourth Hokage come to the house and place protective seals around Kakashi's bedroom that would activate and fling Sakumo out of the room the second that murderous intent was detected. He set things up so that Kakashi spent more and more time on missions or with Minato.

While doing all of those, he also took the time to steal scrolls (well okay, 'steal' was a tad untruthful since Minato kept walking by the room marked forbidden and hollering out, "Put it back once your done." The dratted brat pissed Sakumo off to no end with his damned skulking) so that he could do research on his family and had learned that the blood sickness was passed down every few generations. Then it would skip a few of the newer generations then it would surface again.

He learned that the more potent the blood the stronger the sickness. Knowing that he had it and that Karin had also had the sickness, Sakumo felt a sliver of fear for Kakashi's future and well being. So he found a forbidden scroll that sealed particular blood line traits and tweaked it so that he could place a seal on himself. However there was a trick to it.

He would have to die to make sure that the sickness couldn't be passed down to Kakashi when he transferred his other bloodline traits to him. So after sending Kakashi off on a lengthy mission with Minato, Sakumo had sat down and used the few moments of lucidness he possessed to they're fullest and had planned out what to do next while putting his affairs in order.

He would die and leave his son for good. Because if he didn't, Kakashi would never be safe from him.

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Naru pulled her hand back and took several shuddering breaths as Sakumo slowly, very slowly started to come to his senses and looked at her. And for a second she could see the person he had been before getting sick. He looked at her just as Kakashi looked at her.

With that bizarre mixture of curiosity, frustration and even a faint trace of humor. "You love your son." Naru said, parroting his own words back to him. He gave her a small sad smile then pushed himself up a little bit and groaned and put a hand to his head and was silent for a moment before finally saying.

"I would do anything for my son."

"But you can't live?" Sakumo glanced at her and slowly shook his head no, a pained expression crossing his face.

"No cure. Just nothing but madness to drive me on. It's just not safe for him. He's still so young-" He frowned in confusion and dropped his hand and looked at her a little more closely. "Who are you?" He asked in a more civil tone than any of the other times he'd asked.

Naru gave him a small smile. "I'm Naru."

"Naru who?"

"Just Naru."

"You aren't normal, are you?"

"Anything that doesn't die when you kill it should definately be considered so. Why?"

"Just clearing some stuff up... What are you doing in my home? And why is Kakashi- Oh shit! Kashi!" Sakumo shouted as he scurried to his feet and ran over to his son and bent down to pick him up before freezing and looking back at Naru who was still sitting on the floor with a watchful/bemused look on her face.

"He's just unconscious isn't he?" The man asked in an irked tone. Naru gave him a cheeky grin and he made a funny huffing sound as he straightened his spine and glared at her then snapped. "Well you should have said so to begin with instead of taking ten years off of my-" Naru raised a brow at him and he stopped and muttered. "Oh. Right."