EPILOGUE

Evanescent

...

Five years later

I have lost everyone.

Kakashi dipped his silver head between his knees and wrapped his arms around them. He would never have shown this vulnerability to anyone. He would not even allow anyone to think that there was something wrong but here in the comfort - or rather isolation - of his own home, he did not care.

He would not show anyone that he was burning out.

I have failed. Sasuke was gone, off seeking vengeance. Naruto was gone, with Jiraiya – a teacher better than him, more relatable to Naruto than him. And Sakura was studying under Tsunade, a teacher more suited for her, a teacher that could pay the young kunoichi the attention that he never had.

The only thing that gave him a grace of normalcy had disappeared, and they all left him for another. With adult shinobi, Kakashi had never thought another moment about it but there was an utter sense of complete failure when the children he had invested hours and months into – leave. He liked those hours and months too; he enjoyed it like he had never done so before. The year he had with them were perhaps the lightest years he had ever experienced but that did not seem to change the end result.

Replacement was not so much as bitter, as it was...regretful. But it was not their fault. After Sasuke's defection, Kakashi had been practically absent from the lives of the remaining two. He swore that it was not because he favoured the Uchiha but because Konoha was suffering after the joint invasion...and yet Kakashi knew that it was not the complete truth. Had Sasuke still be there, Kakashi would not have taken up so much missions and he knew it. Things did not feel the same with just the three of them – with Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura.

And now there was no Team Seven. It had broken apart, and Kakashi would never admit how much that tore him.

He pulled down his mask, and took a deep breath. Propping his chin on his arm, he tried to look out the window but he was huddled in the far corner of his room. He could not find the energy to even sit up straighter to see. I am pathetic. Tiredly, he straightened out his now limp legs and leaned back towards the wall, his face tilting upwards as he stared up into the ceiling.

Everything seemed to be getting darker again. Everything was closing in and he felt trapped the way he had when everyone was leaving him before — when his father was gone, when Obito was gone, when Rin was gone, when Minato was gone.

He wondered, was he depressed? He didn't think so. He usually handled loneliness quite well. It was evident how well he handled the death of his father – but even the years before, he had always been alone. His father was a shinobi, he was busy. The years following it allowed Kakashi to rely on Team Minato but without them, he would not have suffered too much either. The ANBU years were obvious: loneliness was his only constant companion.

Well, there was another constant. Akane.

If his life was hell and darkness, she would have been a...

She would have been a black hole. She was not the light he had been looking for, not the light he was straining to see midst it all. She was a black hole. She was not the sun or the stars or the moon but her existence was the complete epitome of darkness that stole all the light. What could have been great had failed. But her presence was so strong that it drew him in anyway, that it pulled him back each time he thought I have lost my humanity.

But if he wanted to continue his endeavour of avoiding bleak thoughts, her name should remain buried deep into the recesses of his repressed memories. He would not think about the girl who Kakashi, completely capable and had the opportunity to, could have saved.

And with that thought, Kakashi gave up.

If I am going to drown in self-pity, I might as well do it thoroughly.

So he thought about all his failures in life.

He thought about how he had grown distant from his father; about how if he had only proved to his father that the whispers and scowls of the villagers did not get to him then perhaps his father would not have felt so alone and alienated and in consequence, would not have taken his life and killed himself. Maybe if he took the first step – if he told his father how proud he was of him, that he still loved him regardless and that he thought that the White Fang was still just as much of a hero, then he would not have been an orphan at seven years old.

But instead, Kakashi practically abandoned his father and treated him like a disgrace in the darkest, last hours of his father's life.

Kakashi thought about Obito, about how rough it was to grow up in the Uchiha clan and not quite meet their standards. He thought about how he took for granted Rin's affection for him when it was the very thing Obito desired more than anything. The very thing Obito would have given up everything to gain. He thought about how if they had just been a real team – not a solo act that was Kakashi Hatake, a peace keeping medic-nin and a boy who had a hero complex – that maybe they would have survived that dark, deep forest. Obito would not have been crushed. Rin would not have only Kakashi to befriend and depend on and eventually go with on the mission that killed her.

He killed her.

And Minato.

He was too young, too weak. He could not even help his sensei in his dying moment – he was disgraced to being forced back and herded to a tree for shelter as if he was a child, as if he had not been one of Konoha's little soldier since he was five. He had so much more experience than half of the chunins that had been out that night the Nine Tails attacked and yet...nothing. He could do nothing. He simply returned to the ruins of Konoha. And then he had to walk through the remains and hear about the triumph of defeating the Fox when so many lives had been lost – and that included the life of the Hokage.

He tried to pinpoint exactly when everything fell apart. He held himself so well after all the deaths...but something happened. Something happened between the time Minato died, and Akane. But what? He remembered a strange happiness then — in the mornings he woke up to feel her copper hair tickling his face, or the late afternoons he spent with his ninken...

So often he entertained those thoughts – all the what ifs and the constant analysis of the events that comprised his life and the recent split of his genin team only added to the list of all the times Kakashi could have done better.

He did not care for the praise, the compliments – any of it. All who thought highly of Kakashi Hatake was mistaken because in his eyes, he was a failure. He was no more than trash. He may have passed all the other tests of his skills and strength but he failed all those that mattered.

And for days, that was all he could simply think about.

xxxxx

A knock on the door made Kakashi open his eyes. A second later, the knocks came louder, faster. Kakashi knew who it was before the jonin even burst into his room.

"Kakashi!" Gai cried out, his fists up in the air and shaking only to stop when he saw Kakashi in bed, completely underneath the blankets. Nothing but tufts of his silver hair peeked from beneath it. Gai blinked. "What are you still doing here?! I told them that you would only be seven hours late – not two days!"

Kakashi didn't respond. He couldn't bring himself to. But then after a thought he realized that he did not want anyone to think anything was wrong. He got up tiredly, rubbing his face, making sure that his mask went up as he did so. "Sorry," he said. His voice was dry and hoarse from not speaking for days. "I must have been more tired than I thought," he added, laughing lightly and running his fingers back through his hair. He wondered if he appeared normal but judging from Gai's intense stare, Kakashi supposed not. Then again, the tight-green jumpsuit-wearing self-proclaimed rival had always watched Kakashi very carefully.

Then Gai's face changed, and his hand shot up. "I got it!" he declared with a wide smirk that looked too force to truly look amused. "You think that you are too old, that you are not youthful enough —"

"Well, no, not real—"

And as the Sublime Green Beast of Konoha continued to advertise his method of having a youthful vigour for life that will glow like ten thousand burning stars, Kakashi even smiled a little.

At least not everything was lost, and Kakashi was more grateful than he could ever express for the things that remained.

xxxxx

"So, this is a solo assignment." Again, the Godaime didn't add. She twined her fingers beneath her chin, her blonde hair falling over her face slightly as she leaned forward to look at the tall, silver-haired shinobi. His face was blank, betraying nothing as he patiently waited for his first mission ever since he had been void of contact for the past few days. "But it's within Konoha. You will be helping one of our most generous benefactors settle in Konoha for the duration they will be staying here to organize our exporting goods."

"I see."

"This is a B-ranked mission. Be an intern, a personal assistance, a slave – I don't care. Just keep the client happy. Got it?"

"Yes, Lady Tsunade," Kakashi nodded.

"Off you go." She leaned back, and cracked her neck. She looked tired too, Kakashi noticed. "You will meet them at in front of Tsuki's.

Kakashi frowned. Tsuki's?

It was a place for gears.

xxxxx

It was a rare occasion that Kakashi was prompt for his duties only to discover that the client was not. He waited outside the shop that specialized in metals and gears for hours – since the morning when Gai went to get him, to now, when it was late in the afternoon and bordering onto evening – for this wealthy client. Kakashi imagined some sort of old, rather round man with plenty of rings around his fingers to constantly holler at others to do his bidding to show up but he did not even get that.

When the sky lost any tinges of yellow and orange from the sun, Kakashi began to get frustrated. He refused to let it show as he leaned against the shop with his eyes closed and arms crossed for the many times other jonins would walk by and snicker at the irony – especially Kurenai, who found it more so amusing as an outsider rather than a victim of Kakashi's signature tardiness.

And then he heard steps.

No, not steps. It was a cane against the stone ground surrounding the shop.

He was wrong again; not a cane: a metal rod.

A fake leg.

And his eyes widened as in walked a woman with an amputated leg. A woman dressed in pale blue. A woman with a smile curled on her lips. A woman with skin lightly dusted in freckles. A woman with coppery, almost blonde hair held up in a messy knot.

A woman with pale blue eyes.

His mouth opened, but he could not breathe. His body went cold, but his chest heat up in flames. His hands shook, but he remained perfectly still.

It couldn't be.

And then she took a step towards him – wobbling just slightly. And all he could think about as his mask of an expression slipped was that it was endearing that this woman did not walk as if she demanded control. Not like her. Not the way that ANBU had walked quickly with her back erect and chin up and cold, sweeping eyes. That was the reality of her, and this had to be a dream, an illusion. And yet...

There she was. Smiling. It was so little, but something was tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Kakashi," she said — and then stopped. "Hi."

His name, her voice. It was a sound that he had been without for so long, and yet, it was with the same familiarity ever since they were young – when he was five, six years old and she was three. He was a child then and now...

Now this.

He could not say a thing.

She opened her mouth, but then stopped. He could feel that she wanted to say something — something desperately; and yet she seemed to be looking everywhere but Kakashi as she flicked away her hair.

Then she took a deep breath and exhaled just as noticeably. Her hands dropped to her side and she was looking at him with worn-out, pale blue eyes.

"Well, I'm ready when you are."

And here draws an end to the story I've been working on for a full year that endured much editing and reformatting but still is nowhere near how I hoped to tell the story...and maybe later, I'll give the story a revamp as I tend to do.

But I do hope you enjoyed this story that spanned across two decades of my dear Kakashi's life that I hoped to cover without being one of those massive, 50+ chapter stories! Thank you so, so much for sticking through the months or just reading it in general! Hopefully, I did Kakashi justice and Akane wasn't horrible to read.

Criticism, reviews, and "bleh"s whichever would be fantastic and definitely taken into account during revamp. Even if you had never reviewed before, I think epilogues are good start for goodbyes :)

Thank you again! And with that I bid farewell, lovely Broken Dolls readers. Thank you so much for all the reviews you've given, the follows and all the favourites!

And of course, depending on the feedback, I will definitely play around with a post-epilogue extra and other shenanigans.