Dear Dr Hiroaki,

I write to you to take ownership and responsibility of the events - encouraged in part by Dr Rosenmato. I've attempted this letter many times and words have always alluded me until now. How do I begin to apologize for my behavior in a way that conveys my meaning?

You always said that recognition is a start. So here it is - a start and with it a hope that I can challenge my thinking and maybe it will result in a positive change.

I did wonder about my referral and how much of my past had been disclosed to you before our first meeting. Did you know that my comrades held an intervention for me? Asuma had told me that they had gone to Lord Third first, out of concern for the darkness that was taking hold of me. I was insulted. I was fine - why did my behavior need modification? Asuma should have been bowing and congratulating me instead of crying to Lord Third about it. I was so angry.

"Was Kurenai so good at the head that she sucked your brain out of your cock." I felt his killing intent before he suppressed it. And, I was glad to piss him off, to make him feel as I did then. But Asuma's bloodlust soon ebbed away, replaced with pity and understanding - he was the better man, then and now, always.

You must have had your suspicions regarding my motivation for selecting you as my therapist. I know Lord Third did but I convinced him with your credentials but he had faith in my choice.

Have you ever seen adults before me? You answered my question with another question - just as you always did. Our first session went so badly that I never expected to see you again. I was such a bastard. I knew you were perfectly qualified to write a prescription but I asked anyway. Did you see through it? The facade had slipped then as you gave a frosty smile, turned down at one side, as if your jaw prevented you from full expression.

I know I disturbed you. I half-expected a referral to another colleague for a better chance at a therapeutic relationship but you didn't. I presented a challenge to you. Was it a game for you too? For me, I took it as such and we entered into an engagement on those terms - doomed from the very start.

I was obsessed with you even before our first meeting. I researched you and learned all I could. Familiarizing myself with enemy terrain and combat style and defense strategy until I amassed a complete understanding of your weaknesses and strengths and what could be employed to bring you down. And I, trash that I am, equipped my arsenal accordingly.

Did you see the similarities we shared? You were precocious too, accelerated through your education and one of the youngest psychiatrists ever qualified. You had been earmarked for a decorated career but then you married your professor. A decision which meant whispers would dog you for the rest of your career, as opportunities for promotion and advancement passed by. I thought that you were trapped by your beauty, by your gender and your personal choices in a way that had never inhibited me. The thirst to prove yourself worthy and deserving - the very thing that unified us - was also my weapon against you.

We started meeting in the winter, a season that always makes me think of you now. Your heart-shaped, doll-like face haunts me. Your white-blonde hair and blue eyes like ice and your coldness. Whether true or a misconception I'm sure it doesn't matter now.

You always wanted to talk about my formative years. How did I feel about this and about that but I always steered the conversation towards my sexual exploits, a hand resting on my thigh near my cock… knowing it would draw your eye. Despite your discomfort you were determined to understand me - to puzzle me out. If you had been a shinobi would that be your nindo?

The need to read you hounded me, as I was convinced that your secrets could be learned. That's the difficulty with skin so pale the slightest emotion gave you away. It started at your cheeks and bled down your neck and chest. You were wound up so tight - like a coiled spring. Your legs crossed and re-crossed against me as though to stop me forcing myself between them. Your notepad that you wielded like a shield. Do you know you had a habit of spinning your wedding ring with your thumb as I talked? As though, that band of gold was imbibed with magical properties - a talisman that would protect you against me.

But as the season turned I talked more of Rin, of Obito, of my father and my childhood, as you felt the balance shift you began to thaw. Legs crossed only once now, notepad resting on the table and the wedding ring spun and glittered less and less. Your suits soon gave way to blouses and skirts, black stockings to thin, sheer stockings and I saw once, a glimpse of a scar or a tattoo on your ankle before you adjusted the strap of your shoe and it was gone. Slowly, your body was emerging like a chrysalis - almost ready.

The day that I had learned of the Uchiha tragedy coincided with a session. Would I have acted differently if it hadn't? I couldn't say either way. It was a bitter pill to swallow knowing that I have no control or influence over others. That day we talked about the acquisition of the Sharingan. I told you that tragedy trailed the eye but that it was the very thing that Obito had gifted to me - a key to how I felt about my comrades. I had pulled off my mask and the hitai-ate to show it to you. You smiled, perhaps attributing it to a genuine breakthrough but something about my face unsettled you, the ring flashed again as you held a hand up to your chest as if to barr the way in.

I want to make love to you, I said. I've wanted you for months and I know you want me too.

It's transference Kakashi, you pleaded. We need to discuss this rationally. Concerned, even then, that we would compromise my reminded me that you were married but for me that responsibility was yours alone. You begged me to stop, but they were words not actions and I said that I would only stop if you could say it and mean it. You fell silent and wrongly, I took that omission as consent.

I pulled your hand away from the blouse tearing it open, as your breasts burst free. I had never seen breasts like that before or since, nipples so large and pale, that they faded into your breasts and I knew that I could spend a lifetime mapping the transition of pigmentation and not be sure where they began and ended. How apt that your body is as unknowable as you.

I remember the sound of the pages from the notepad as they crumpled and crunched as I knelt on them between legs that were not closed now. I am sure that you had lifted your hips to make it easier for me to push up the skirt. My fingers finally grazed the seam of your stockings, the join over your entrance, a scrap of white between us and I could feel and smell how wet for me you were, and how close I was to having you. But then a "no."

I had never guessed what power that word had against me. We had only talked about performativity, how a life is a sum of actions and deeds. I agreed only to please you, never giving it credence. You grew in strength everytime you said it and I still hear it now.

As I knelt there it was the hardest lesson of my life. And I was angry. But you stood your ground in spite of the intimidation. You delivered that hard slap to my face. I think that frightened you more than you were of me. Have you ever hit anyone before? But it was nothing to me, as I was -am conditioned to violence and moreover, I reveled in it. I remember the sound, the sting and the cut that your ring made against my face. I left with anger and fury and bloodlust. I left the village for a mission. I wish I had left Anbu that night but I didn't. We pushed on with the mission, and with a new recruit to my squad.

She was the perfect foil to you - even in likeness - an anecdote to your pale skin, and blond hair. Some warmth after the cold. Days bled into weeks, the mission was going badly, it was the night before an ambush but we were so outnumbered there was a chance that we would die. Had that made her bold? I was assigned to first watch and she threw herself into my path then. I should have said no, I should have carried on and maybe I would have had the same strength as you in your office.

But I didn't say no.

I fucked her, and brutally, as though her body was a conduit for yours and you would be able to feel my hurt, and my fear and my fury. When it was over she hated me - hates me still which is no less than I deserve, as I cost her everything.

The mission was a success and despite the odds we escaped with our lives, but then a counter-attack from the enemy, an explosion - that we - that I - hadn't anticipated. She was falling and as I was closest -I extended my hand for her but she hesitated and then she was lost. We were close to Konoha but as the others raced to the hospital, I was summoned to Lord third. I have never known fury like that.

It was Lord Third, who told me what you had done. I felt so ashamed of the sacrifice you made and the punishment you had meted out for yourself. To resign from your post, citing a violation of duty of care towards me. You had even reported yourself to the Standards and Ethics committee for your conduct. It had resulted in your suspension and a lengthy investigation and the end of your marriage and then something worse... all those years later.

The black void called for me, as I understood that my selfishness and self-destructive choices and decisions impacted others. There was a knock on the door - a bittersweet interruption. She would live but she would never live as a shinobi again.

I sank to my knees then, and I lay on the floor, my forehead against the carpet floor, abrasive, rough wool scratched my face. Crying for you, for her, for Rin and Obito, for all the others and for me most of all.

I had dispensed with all dignity, almost groveling like a dog, but then the other day, Lord Third knelt beside me and held me so freely without judgment or agenda, that I realized with sadness and self-pity how much kindness and humanity had always cost me.

As he held me. I tendered my resignation from Anbu. As I had decided that I couldn't live as I had done before. I wish I could have arrived at that juncture without changing the course of all the lives of others so irrevocably.

I am not sure that you will ever read this letter and whether by choice or by design but please know that I think of you. I'm glad that you have resumed your practice away from the village.

I hope that the distance and time have afforded you an opportunity at peace. For me, I'm not sure I will ever find it or deserve it but I can only live on in hope.

I am truly sorry.

K.