Legacy [ Naruto Reader-Insert ]

The sky is still dark when Kakashi wakes up, light almost peaking out from the horizon. He doesn't sleep well. He hasn't in a full decade. His ANBU training keeps him spry (ha ha, he feels old) and alert even with very little sleep (only slept for three hours the previous night). It's a good question, why he can't keep his promise.

A hard question.

He sits up, fluffing up his pillows so he can lean back towards the backboard comfortably. Angling his eye heavenward, racking himself for answers.

A promise is a social contract, a verbal agreement that one will or will not do what is agreed upon. It's not a legally or nationally binding like the oath every genin swears to the Hokage once they get their headbands. It's not an order. It's not a rule. And both of them are made to be bent, skirting around the edges of what's allowed or not.

He proves that by dancing around the fine line of social niceties; turning up late for appointments for one. It's not his fault that he's stuck in the hospital bed most of the time or that Obito's and Rin's graves are poorly kept and are in need of cleaning and seeing to.

It is, it is. It's his fault. All of it.

Reading Icha-Icha in public. It's not his fault that the books are so well written. How pure, how passionate the relationship between the protagonist and his lover, his best friend. How he goes to the ends of the earth just to keep the lights of his life, his reason of living, safe from danger. It's almost precious, how innocent and how puerile the characters are.

Lies lies, all lies. It's porn. Passionately written porn. A passionate adult relationship between a man and woman. A warning. A deterrent to make them all stay away. If nobody gets close to him, there won't be any collateral damage. It won't be his fault. His fault. He doesn't deserve connections. Everybody eventually leaves. Why bother burdening them with something heavy? His fault. His fault.

Stupid far-fetched excuses for his lateness? God, there are so many black cats and old women that need help around Konoha that it's almost impossible to keep him on time, y'know? Master of deflection. Man of a thousand excuses. He actually might hop by Shinobi Counter Intelligence to change his title in the issued Bingo books this time. Hah, what a hoot.

Uchiha Obito, his best friend. Pure of heart. Unable to keep himself from offering help to anyone he sees nearby. Hatake Sakumo, his father. Konoha's White Fang. Steadfast in his beliefs and his gentle smile. God, he'd give everything to have them back. God, if he could just be a tiny bit like them. Kakashi picked the most memorable parts of both of them, the smile, the reasons. His fault, his fault. All of it is his fault. Obito. Rin. Everything.

He can't keep his promise to you because that's the one promise he can't keep. He's still a boy, frozen in time of before.

Kakashi is astounded (not really) by how eloquent his thoughts are when he's sober. The sun is rising now and the light filters into the room. His gaze is trained on the lump at the side of Hakunetsu's bed.

What is the Hokage trying to do with you? He's put you in a enclosure with nothing but beasts at all sides. And putting you under his wing. Kakashi can't stop the muddying thoughts in the back of his mind, dragging him deeper into the dark abyss where all his personal monsters lie in wait for him.