Thanks for all the support, people. Have nice lives and hope to see you around someday. (which is a good song, by the way, from Nickelback).

Midori Fujiwara

The snow fell, soft puffs of crystal that sparkled down layer after layer, covering all the surface and leaving blankets of fresh, smooth, untouched, and clean snow.

Snow was a favorite in children's toy boxes that only was found in one season every year. So of course, after the first heavy snowfall, Rin jumped at the chance to play in it.

"Snow. Play," Rin said cheerfully. And she even put on the winter clothes Kakashi had bought for her. She expected to go outside.

Kakashi readjusted his mask, pulling it higher, and looked toward Yukiko's direction. She didn't object, didn't even seem to hear, so Kakashi decided it was okay for Rin to go.

They were the first to touch the snow in the area they chose. Rin tried to scoop up some snow, but she made small hills instead. Her efforts to pick up some snow were given up so Kakashi bent down and, with great expertise, made a perfect snowball, feeling the familiar crunch in his hands, and the stinging coolness some flakes left on his fingers.

Kakashi showed it to Rin, and she tried to copy the way he made a snowball. She was successful however, in making a half-squished sphere, and when she tried to fix the lopsidedness, the snowball fell apart in chunks.

He just observed her as she tried once more to make a perfect snowball. The snowball in his own hand was slowly freezing up his hand, but he ignored the numbness.

She learns quickly, he thought as Rin, on only her second try, had made a perfect snowball, only much smaller than it was intended to be, dropping a lot of the picked up snow that was intended to be part of the snowball.

Rin dropped it in the snow and made a hill over the small snowball, and then picked it the snowball and the extra snow she piled over it. She molded the excess snow around it to increase the snowball's size. She continued to enlarge her snowball this way until it got to the size of her head, and started to become difficult to lift.

He was still holding his original snowball in one hand, so used his free hand to push Rin's large snowball along the snow. Within a few moments, Rin had caught on and realized that rolling the snowball in the snow would gradually increase its size.

Kakashi watched Rin enlarge her snowball until it was almost her size before stopping.

Kakashi dropped his own snowball finally and kicking it along, made a snowball a bit smaller than the one Rin made. He picked it up and put it on top of Rin's larger one.

He turned around and saw Rin with a smaller snowball than the first two in her hands. She stood on her tiptoes to try to place the smallest one on top, but she was too short. Kakashi lifted her finally and she proudly put the last piece on the snowman.

Rin poked two eyes and drew a large U-shaped smile wide across the snowman's face.

Kakashi found himself slightly smiling, something he hadn't done in more than two years. Not a fake or cheesy smile, but a real one, with the real emotion of happiness behind it. Actually, he wasn't exactly happy, he just smiled out of nowhere, maybe because of nostalgia or maybe just because Rin was doing something child-like like she was expected to do.

Whatever it was, it wasn't fake.

He bent down to pick up more snow. Out of boredom, he shaped the snow into another snowball, feeling the distinct crunch once again.

His senses picked up several things at once. First, the atmosphere didn't feel right. And he also had heard an extra crunch of snow that he himself didn't make. He whipped around his eye caught a white moving object. By reflex, he hurled the snowball he had just made at it.

The white moving object turned out to be a snowball that was thrown at him. When his snowball and the one coming at him met in the air, they collided and, being fresh snow, broke up into tiny snowflakes and dispersed in the air, creating a cloud of white.

The cloud cleared, snow falling back down to the surface and Kakashi instantly recognized Maito.

Kakashi was suddenly filled with annoyance, but he was in a better mood at the moment, so the emotion was more simmered down.

"Ah, Kakashi, my eternal rival! What a coincidence seeing you here! Speaking of which, I challenge you to the ultimate snow fight!"

"Sure, a game…why not?" Kakashi said dully.

"This is not a game! It is a full-fledged competition between me and you! And currently I have more wins than you…50 wins!"

"Half of which were ultimate rock-paper-scissor contests," Kakashi replied.

Simply put, Maito got mad.

"Predicting the enemy's move is a skill that every valued ninja has," Maito defended. "Without precognition of the enemy's move, the shinobi could ultimately fail the battle because of the disadvantage of not being able to know what will come next, meaning not being able to expect anything. Furthermore, prediction of the enemy's move could very well be proportional to the amount of intellect the shinobi has. But not just any prediction; only a sensible prediction will prove the level of higher standard thinking. And the more accurate predictions a shinobi makes, the smarter he is assumed to be. 

That way, simply put, the shinobi battle is not entirely of skill, but of intellect as well. So sometimes, the shinobi deemed to be the strongest with high regards from everyone is usually the weakest in reality, because there are so many more factors to a fight in shinobi standards."

Kakashi looked up from the ground when he sensed the sudden quietness. Maito stopped talking? Kakashi asked, "You said something?"

"That is it! Whoever gets hit by the opponent's snowball first is the loser! This contest will determine our worth as shinobi!"

Kakashi blinked and then looked back at Rin, who was also staring at this overreacting person. He swiftly lifted her up and put her to the side, lest she get hit by a snowball.

Kakashi scooped up some snow with one hand and, keeping an eye on Maito, slowly cupped the snow to make it into yet another snowball. As he waited for Maito to make a move, he rounded it out, stalling a bit, letting Maito make the first move.

The trick to waiting for someone to move was to not keep an eye on the opponent's hands or feet, but to watch the hair on the opponent's head as well, since that would almost always be first to move.

And so, at the sight of movement, Kakashi threw out his snowball and grabbed some snow before siding away from one of Maito's thrown ones. He pulled back his arm to hurl a snowball at Maito, but knowing Maito as a specialist in taijutsu, knew that he was too slow for Maito. Maito would have already made up a large stock of snowballs by now.

His premonition was right and Kakashi found himself dodging several snowballs at a time. It felt almost endless, this barricade, and Kakashi was nearly hit by one. He backed up into a tree and ducking a final snowball, leapt into one of the snowy branches.

Not good, he thought as snow fell to the ground from the branch, giving away his location. Thinking quickly, he extracted some thread out of a broken seam on his vest.

Now he needed a distraction.

Taking the snowball he hadn't thrown yet, he placed it on a small notch near the end of a small outstretched branch above him.

He kicked some snow into the air around him, making a swirling mass of loose snow around him. Wouldn't hide him, but would at least hide him tying the thread onto the end of the branch with the snowball perched on top of it. He dangled the thread down to the ground.

Simple thing, but so simple, Maito could overlook it.

Maito had leapt onto branch about the same level Kakashi was on, but on another tree.

By this time, Kakashi was ready and fired a few snowballs at him, and at the same time, leaped onto a higher branch. His landing on the next branch wasn't good, and some snow from above powdered down on him, landing on his head and some flakes chilling his neck.

Maito followed, complete with snowballs going several miles an hour at Kakashi.

From there on, it was just Kakashi and Maito leaping up to higher branches all at the same time throwing snowballs one after the other. When Kakashi couldn't find a higher branch, he leapt off and landed on the ground. Quickly looking around for a thread, he took it and dodged a snowball from Maito, how five feet away from where he was previously.

Who knew thread from an old vest could be this long?, Kakashi thought, almost in humor.

Maito landed on the ground holding a snowball. He already had pulled his arm back to throw it at Kakashi. But since he was standing perfectly under the snowball 'trap' Kakashi had made before, Kakashi knew he'd never get a chance to throw it.

Maito answered Kakashi's thoughts.

"It's over," Maito smirked.

"It is," Kakashi agreed, and internally smirked, knowing no one would see him smirk anyway even if he did do so physically.

He pulled the thread, which he held between his index and middle fingers.

The snowball landed on Maito's head with a satisfying plop.

"50," Kakashi said, reminding Maito of his new score of wins, which now tied with Maito's. He might lose putting out rock instead of paper, but he definitely wasn't losing something that he could win without chance.

Rin started to laugh.

Maito scowled before brushing off snow from his head and walking away, shooting eyes at Kakashi that read something along the lines of 'it's not over, wait until next time…'

Kakashi looked up toward the sky, noticing a figure out on the balcony and recognized Yukiko.

It was like a still photograph or painting. Yukiko was standing out there, in a red turtleneck sweater and black dress, arms crossed with the elbows and forearms on the balcony ledge.

From this far down, Kakashi couldn't tell what she was looking at, but she was definitely looking down.

And obviously had been watching Rin and Kakashi the whole time.

Kakashi and Rin came home to see Yukiko back inside and looking at the only picture he owned. The one of Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and him. The team picture.

It was directly above the ninjatou, the one that had tasted his blood.

He hoped she hadn't touched it.

She turned her head to face them. "Did you have fun?" she asked. And then she smiled.

Kakashi stared, realizing he never did see her smile before. Her smile was one of the rare ones…one of those that made someone forget all the sorrows in life for that one moment.

And then suddenly, she was standing directly in front of him.

"Looks like you had more fun than Rin," she said softly, brushing off snow from his shoulders.

And then his hair.

Kakashi tensed again. 'Don't touch me' , he wanted to say. But he unfortunately reminded himself of her embrace the other night because of that.

And unfortunately Rin came out of nowhere while Kakashi was training the team, even though he had left her home with Yukiko quite carelessly.

"Daddy!" Rin tackled Kakashi's leg. Yukiko came after Rin, slowly approaching the scene, looking at Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke.

Well at least now I know she isn't trashing my house, Kakashi forced himself to think optimistically. Kakashi lifted Rin off his leg and put her some foot away from him.

So now one thing was solved.

But there was another problem now.

"You're Kakashi's students, aren't you?" Yukiko asked the team.

They nodded.

"Oh, I saw you in a picture," she said.

A brief moment of complete silence followed, and then Yukiko took Rin away, saying, "Well I'm sorry for being a disturbance," as she casually walked off.

Kakashi shot her an angry look that she never saw, and when he turned around to face his students, they were looking weirdly at him.

"But I thought—" Sakura started.

"You have a wife and kid?" Naruto asked in shock, and quite loudly.

Sasuke said nothing, but blinked and looked down at the ground, not sure what to say.

"No, I don't have a wife or kid," Kakashi replied, reaching into one of his pockets.

"But—"

Kakashi flipped out his book to a random page and began to read.

This can't go on forever, Kakashi thought as he came home. The two couldn't stay at his place forever. It wasn't that he minded it was just…okay he minded a bit, but it was…overall much too awkward. There was an excuse when it was only Rin, because he was taking her in. Yukiko was a different story. How ironic…what would Lady Tsunade react to the situation of she was told of it?

He found Yukiko and thinking quickly, said "Let's go eat dinner," and then added, "Just you and me." He tried to make it casual, which he did, except that he felt his voice was shaky.

Her face paled as if she knew what this whole thing was going to be about.

She probably did.

With her consent, Rin was left home and they went into the nearest restaurant, taking a private room.

They sat down across from each other in silence for a while, Yukiko staring at the edge of the table, and Kakashi busily thinking about how he would start the conversation.

"About the—" Kakashi started.

But he was interrupted by the abrupt waiter who came into the room and asked for their order.

They both ordered something small and the waiter quickly wrote the numbers down and left as abruptly as he had come in.

Now, suddenly, Kakashi didn't feel like talking anymore. As he stared off at a wall, his mind made imaginary clicks of the seconds going by and the time being wasted.

"Thank you for letting us stay…" Yukiko said. "It's been a long time and—"

She knew exactly what this was about. Great, he didn't have to explain as much.

The abrupt waiter came in again and served out the dishes.

Isn't service supposed to be slower?, he thought.

But he heard her laugh softly and suddenly realized he must have said it out loud.

The food, being there, became a distraction. He made the decision of eating first and talking later, but something at the back of his head nagged at him, predicting that they'd probably just eat and leave, and the conversation would never have even started.

Kakashi ignored his mind and attended to his stomach. Though he took some more caution doing this, because the last time he had done that, there was a nice long chain of events, in fact, that eventually lead up to this very point in time right now.

At first, he was uncomfortable, but he remembered that she'd already seen his face. He pulled his mask down, trying to do it as casually as possible and began to eat. He didn't bother to remove his headband; she didn't need to see that.

He ate without taste because memories of Obito disturbed him. And then the annoying pain at his abdomen, reminding himself of what he had tried before…

He finished the meal off with a drink of water and waited, watching Yukiko finish her food. He began to study her, to kill time. Rin had inherited many of her mother's traits, he observed. Rin was almost like a younger version of Yukiko, except that Rin had a different color hair and eyes, which made her like more like the Rin he knew, the Rin from his team.

Now that he was actually paying attention of her, he suddenly realized that he was taking a liking of her appearance, especially now under the light.

Kakashi focused his mind on Rin again. Come to think of it, she was almost like his own daughter. Not physically, but definitely mentally.

It would be quite lonely at his apartment.

He was reminded of the warmth he felt when Yukiko had embraced him. It was a warmth immeasurable and comparative to the sun's. And having someone just a bit too close to him…breaking through a barrier that no one had ever tried to pass.

His thoughts stopped with the clink of chopstick on porcelain.

Yukiko now stared over at his empty plate.

"You know…" she said.

Kakashi learned forward to indicate his attention, arms crossed and elbows on the table.

"I was just thinking…" she said, turning her head to the left, in a struggle to get out what she had to get out. Kakashi watched her lips move, forming each word to assure himself he wasn't just hallucinating voices. "I was just thinking things over and…"

Her voice became fainter in his head as his mental thoughts took over. Hn, he wasn't paying attention again… Kakashi's mind began to piece together what he assumed she'd say. But since he knew that two things were unpredictable: the future and humanity, he forced himself to pay attention to Yukiko to hear what she had to say. So he studied the lines and curves that made up her face to follow along with the motions her lips made forming words.

Despite all the forced concentration, he found he couldn't concentrate, instead of listening to her actual voice, he was paying attention only to the movement of her lips.

But he sensed the silence when it came.

"I think…" she said, and dropped off when she turned her head to face him, noticing sudden proximity.

He wasn't sure what part of him was controlling him, but he learned in and closed the space between their lips. It wasn't much of a kiss, he knew, because he just simply let their lips touch gently. There wasn't much emotion in it as well, just only light contact and that was all.

But it was quite a unique sensation.

He sensed something in the distance and pulled back from her lips, leaning back against his chair. He pulled his mask up the second before the abrupt waiter came in.

Rin persuaded Kakashi to go to the memorial stone, for no apparent reason exactly, but Kakashi suspected it was probably because he had been blanking out for most of the day, and Rin thought he was being depressed again.

He couldn't help but smile whenever thinking about Rin.

Just some Oishi prawn crackers…, he thought.

The depression of his life returned upon coming to the memorial.

Kakashi stared at Obito's name after he watched Rin go off into the distance, chasing after a butterfly.

He got flashes from the past in several strong emotional scenes the moment he looked at Obito's name.

Kakashi and Obito arrived at the scene, and didn't even consider making their appearance a sneak attack. They were quite confident enough that the enemy in front of them was the last one.

The enemy heard their arrival and turned around. Upon seeing the enemy muttered to himself, "Everyone's useless…", referring to the fact that the enemy's comrade had failed to stop Obito and Kakashi.

There was a little humor in what the enemy had said but Obito set the seriousness back, whispering to Kakashi what he observed. "Rin's chakra flow is irregular…" he said. "…completely different to mine and yours…"

To which Kakashi replied, "She could have been put under some genjutsu…it was probably to get information out of her quickly."

The enemy studied Kakashi and Obito briefly. "Hm…" he said, "looks like you're no ordinary brats…"

"We've already beaten one, but…this one has high speed," Obito quickly warned, settling into a fighting stance. "Be careful."

Kakashi reached for his chakra blade and unsheathed it quickly. "Right," he answered.

Kakashi and Obito charged first, and the enemy followed, two blades sliding out of the enemy's attack now.

Kakashi quickly thought of how to evade the enemy's counterattack against him, while he watched the enemy's two blades coming in to slash him…

To both Kakashi and enemy's surprise however, Obito kicked both legs up to stop the enemy's arms from advancing, leaving Kakashi open and having a chance to attack at the enemy.

Kakashi took the chance, slashing down hard, and leaving a gash on the enemy's shoulder.

The enemy flinched and Kakashi hopped off the enemy to pass behind him to get to Rin. The enemy fell to the ground in Kakashi's push off his body, and Obito followed after Kakashi.

"Kai!" Kakashi said quickly while the two approached Rin.

Rin snapped out of the genjutsu.

"Kakashi…Obito…" she said in relief and happiness.

"We came to save you, Rin! It's alright now!" Obito explained.

"Right!" Kakashi said, using a kunai to cut Rin out from the rope binding she was in. "We'd better get out of here fast."

Rin's face brightened in hearing how Obito and Kakashi had finally worked out well together. All this time, she had been the middle of their frequent arguments…she was so glad that Obito and Kakashi had finally settled their differences…

"Indeed…that was a good combination," the enemy said, standing up again. "But you're still just brats…you're now right in my hands…"

Kakashi didn't even have time to think before the enemy suddenly put his right hand to the ground, saying, "Earth Release! Rock Lodement Destruction!"

The three of them suddenly noticed builders falling in from the air.

"Oh damn!" Obito exclaimed while Rin was speechless.

"Everyone, get out of here, quickly!" kakashi yelled.

This command didn't take long to follow and the three ran for their lives as boulders larger than themselves crashed down on the ground they had only run past under a split second ago.

Kakashi felt a hard thawk on his left shoulder. He fell to the ground, noticing to himself that the rock had hit him in his blind spot.

He fell, knowing that the boulders would encase him in a tomb of stone.

He was about to lose himself when Yukiko's voice asked, "Who did you lose?"

For all his life, Kakashi wanted someone to vent out his emotions to. But now suddenly, as he got the opportunity to talk about his past to someone, he didn't feel like sharing anymore. Maybe it was because there was so much to say, and that he didn't feel like talking much. But whatever it was, he felt constrained to say even a word.

"My friend," Kakashi suddenly said, surprising himself. "My friend Obito Uchiha…when I was thirteen…"

He said 'thirteen' and surprised himself. So long ago? , he heard himself think. Was it really that long ago? It only felt like yesterday to him.

"We were on a mission…" he continued, "and our teammate was captured."

Shut up, he heard himself say. Just stop and shut up.

But he couldn't.

"Obito wanted to save her, but I wanted to just forget her and continue on with the mission…because that was how I was brought up…my own father had dropped a mission to save his teammates' lives…and was put in shame by the Land of Fire for failing it…" Kakashi paused.

"He committed suicide," Kakashi plainly said, but internally he was twisted in pain. "So I didn't wanted to made the same mistake he did…because if I did, my father's life would have been wasted… and if he ended himself, it meant he wanted to have taught me a lesson that I would never forget…

"So I went a separate way from Obito…but before we went separate ways he told me my father was right in saving his teammate's lives…so some while after we had parted, I changed my mind and came to find him right in time to save him from being hit…but my eye received the damage in exchange…And then later, after finding back our captured teammate…who was…Rin…"

Kakashi glanced over toward Rin's direction, who was passing by, running still after the butterfly.

"And then there was a final attack…a rockslide…I couldn't see the rocks and Obito pushed me out of the way of falling boulders…the boulders crushed him instead…he offered me later…on his dying breaths…a replacement for my hurt eye—"

Kakashi stopped.

A whoosh of sudden emotion went through him.

He had said it. He had proved to himself his life wasn't just a nightmare. He had told Obito's story. He had told himself that his was real life.

Kakashi felt as though he was being pulled back down to earth.

To reality.

Obito's death had happened.

His father's suicide was material.

His life…

was real.

Yukiko raised her hand and slowly pulled up his headband, seeing his Sharingan eye for the first time.

Her face got closer to his and her lips touched his Sharingan eye, or at least the eyelid of it. Withdrawing, she ran her finger along the scar he had vertically through the skin around his replaced eye.

And then she embraced him, and as he returned the embrace, he left like all the grief in him was being lifted…

Yukiko and Kakashi sat on the couch while Rin was asleep that night.

"It feels life Rin is my own daughter," Kakashi admitted to Yukiko, once again, bringing up the issue about them being in his apartment. "And I've gotten really close to her." After he thought a quick second, he added, "So I was just thinking…"

He looked up to see Yukiko's expression, but she was waiting emotionlessly for the end of his sentence.

"Thinking that we should…get married," Kakashi simply stated.

Yukiko blushed and began to stammer. "You don't have to…to do this for Rin…you know, I mean it's just—"

"No," Kakashi interrupted, keeping his calm voice but his heart exponentially increasing. "I'm marrying you because I want to…and I was just asking if you'd like that."

Yukiko looked to the side.

"Yes…" she said, and looked back up at him. "I'd…like that a lot."

Kakashi smiled an unseen smile and pulled down his mask, aiming his mouth at her lips, but the split second he would have made contact, they both heard a noise.

"Aaah!" Rin yelled, covering her eyes and running back into the bedroom.

…and stories have to end somehow, right?

But that paves the way for a new beginning of a new story...

Midori Fujiwara