TaikoHawk-- Howdy folks. I know I mentioned another Naruto fic in the works on my profile. This is NOT it. This particular fic attacked me as I was watching the new Shippuden episodes (KAKASHI GAIDEN FTW!). I really like Kakashi. He's pretty cool, even if he does go all 'I'm only paying attention to Sasuke' and whatnot. He's still an interesting character. Um. So then. This fic is actually more like a series of drabbles of varying length and tone, focusing on the one and only Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi!

Please read and review!!!

Disclaimer-- I this really necessary? Obviously I don't own rights to Naruto.

In A Life

1. Konoha no Shiroi Kiba

Kakashi had been the one to find him, naturally. He'd done it in the middle of their living room. Some time in the night, Hatake Sakumo had taken a kunai and committed seppuku, while his nine-year-old son slept in a room just down the hall. Said son woke in the morning to a still house filled with the scent of old blood.

Kakashi couldn't smell any enemies in the house, but he wasn't fool enough to think that that meant there weren't any. He hadn't become a Chunin at age six as a fluke. With impressive stealth, the young prodigy paced down the hall toward the living areas of his home, a kunai held ready in one hand. Of all the things he could have found, he didn't quite expect it to be his father's disemboweled form lying crumpled on the living room tatami mats. There was quite a lot of blood, which explained the smell.

The nine-year-old now-orphan stared at the body, his arm holding the kunai hanging limply at his side. It was apparent his father had committed suicide. The wound, the way his body lay just so, the fact that there was no sign of a struggle in the house, the fact that his father's famous tanto sat, sheathed, on a low table beside the body… it all pointed to seppuku. A part of Kakashi's mind observed this all, subjectively. Seppuku… So that was the response his father had decided to make to the dishonor he'd had recently heaped upon him.

Oh yes, Kakashi knew of his father's actions, knew how he'd abandoned a mission because he held his Teammates' lives more important that mission success. He knew how Sakumo had been shunned, disgraced, hated… by everyone, even the Teammates whose lives he'd saved, because that mission could have shortened the war. Yes, Kakashi knew. And he'd seen the pain in his father's eyes before the elder Hatake had shuttered them. But he hadn't… quite… expected this of his father, though it shouldn't have surprised him. Sakumo had, on occasion, spoken of honor and the keeping of it.

Standing there, analyzing the scene and the situation, Kakashi wasn't really sure what he should be feeling. Relief because his father had ended his disgrace? Grief because his last family member was now dead? Anger because his father had left him alone? Shame because his father hadn't been strong enough to follow the Shinobi Rules and so had made such an end of himself?

In the end, Kakashi ended up just feeling hollow. Because, after all, a shinobi must never show emotion.