There goes my hero

@aflashoffaith​ said: Complaining about yourself, now?

              “i only do that when no one’s looking.”

A life without Kushina was not one he’d ever seriously considered a possibility.

Of course there were no definites in their lives, no guarantee that they would see tomorrow, but she had always been so strong (much more so than he’d ever been), so defiant when faced with the cards that fate tried to play that Minato had truly believed she would have fought death himself to stay by his side.

And she had, really, had refused to succumb to the injuries that should have been immediately fatal. Had grit her teeth and held their son with shaking hands, defiant too in not allowing her time with Naruto to be taken away. Brief as it was, the little that Minato could give to her.

But he is here without her, now, little more than a ghost displaced in time. Their son is grown, raised into the sort of man they’d hoped he would be by the student Minato no longer recognized. 

We are a family of shinobi. How foolish it all had been, grasping so tightly onto duty that he was left with only regret as a companion, warming his bed at night.

The flowers he sets on her headstone are beautiful, of course, as bright and vibrant as the woman they are meant for in varied reds, yellows, oranges. Like them. His own name is etched in stone beside her but it is almost more than he can bear to read over the faded letters that make up hers so when he sits he pointedly turns his back to the dearly departed Yondaime and wonders if she would laugh at his weakness.

@aflashoffaith​ continued from here:

Quietly pulls out the list that Kakashi had Obito and Rin contribute to, flipping over the page.  “Do you want from just today, or in general?”

They keep a list.

...

......

..........

     Kakashi fights the embrace at first, denies it, doesn’t want weakness or comfort, just the bitter resentment the shinobi world had taught him. His hands ball into fists, want to thrash, want to fight his way out of this (like a disrespectful brat). Those words weren’t good enough, sorry didn’t fix anything in their team, didn’t bring the dead back to life. He knew, he’d repeated them enough times himself to corpses, wishing somehow things could have been different. If only he had done things different. 

     He feels the wet streaks on his face before he realized he was crying, hot, angry tears blotting down his cheeks and soaking into his mask and his sensei’s shirt. It’s not fair. He wants to scream, his emotions pouring over in waves he tried his best to contain, failing, washed in the sorrow and the anger and his own helplessness. 

“That doesn’t change anything. You still weren’t there. I shouldn’t be–” …The one that survived. The words die on his tongue, unable to voice them out loud. Because more than anything, it came down to Kakashi’s own failures than anything Minato did or didn’t do. Kakashi was the one there, he should have been able to protect his team, but he had failed. (He failed his father too, should have stood up for him and told him the truth instead of siding with the village out of thoughtless obligation). 

     He stops trying to fight his way out of his sensei’s arms, strength slipping out of his limbs. He suddenly felt very small, balling his fists into Minato’s jacket. He was a shinobi. He was a jonin. It shouldn’t matter that a few people had died, that was the way their world worked. He should be over them by now, like everyone else. Why couldn’t he stop having flashbacks, why couldn’t he just stop feeling? Why did he just keep failing?

     He failed his father. He failed Obito. He failed Rin. He was going to fail everyone.

“Sorry can’t bring them back.” And his voice betrays him, cracking under the weight of the words. 

“Neither can blaming yourself.”

Minato is a perceptive man, something he usually finds pride in. He can easily read his opponents, break down and understand the pieces that fit together to make up their plan of attack, the secrets behind burning chakra they dare to point his way. 

He knows exactly the things Kakashi tries to bury underneath the underneath but it doesn’t make him feel any less a failure. Because he blames himself too, because he is a broken imperfect man in a broken imperfect world and the only thing his student has really learned is that there are no answers but no one has the strength to admit it.

What was left to do when following the rules failed him, but prioritizing his comrades did too? Was there some mythical sweet spot that didn’t lead to nightmares over buried children?

Minato is a hypocritical man, something he is struggling to learn how to accept.

“You were my responsibility, and I let down all three of you. Sorry doesn’t change anything but... I want you to hear me say it, anyway.”

Maybe it’s selfish to say, maybe it’s just more of his own weakness being passed along when he can’t keep his voice steady either- and maybe it actually is some sort of strength instead, to show his student that he is a person instead of some intangible concept, just out of grasp. (maybe maybe maybe, if only) Clearly Minato has never had any good answers either and it feels like such a pitifully small thing but he tightens his hold on Kakashi anyway, more afraid that he’ll slip away too than thinking he should be supportive and comforting. 

(he shouldn’t be, probably, if what he’s been taught is any sort of strict path he should follow but he cannot bear the thought of Kakashi shouldering this burden alone, the idea that he should. it’s not fair.)

“You were supposed to be there!”

    The words are a grief-laden accusation, helplessness funneled into something, anything that made Kakashi feel less. The emotions twisted in his heart, his usual, stoic demeanor crumbling away, leaving behind a child that felt so small, so useless to do anything to fix the world. It shouldn’t have to be this way, he shouldn’t be a harbinger of death to everyone who was close to him. The guilt bubbles in him, a putrid, awful feeling like acid eating away at his insides. He blames himself more than anyone else, and was going to feel even worse once this anger left him, twisting with embarrassment for projecting his own failures onto his sensei. But for now, he only felt the vindication of throwing another person’s failings back in their face.

“We were Team Minato, weren’t we? Why were you never with the team named after yourself, huh?”

    He shouldn’t have put any trust into him. In the shinobi world you could only rely on yourself. (He knew that wasn’t true, and hoped that if Minato could have been there, he would have, right?). Surely Minato should have seen they weren’t ready for that first mission alone, that the teamwork was faked and tempers still clashed. Wasn’t Minato able to teleport when help was needed? Why had he and Rin been left alone in a two-man squad, surrounded by the enemy? Kakashi did everything he could, but he was only one person, carrying the weight of war and death on his shoulders.

“You’re always late. I thought you were supposed to be The Yellow Flash?”

    Mismatched gaze glares up at Minato, Sharingan tomoe spinning, volatile emotions expressed so clearly through it. A sorrow fills his bones, photographic afterimages replaying perfectly through his optics whenever he blinked. A gift and a curse wrapped into one. He deserved the pain it brought him to view his failed promise over and over again in his mind. First Obito, and then Rin. Just one simple thing that he failed, always failed at keeping those closest to him safe.

“Why are you never there!? They’re both dead.” Because of me. Because of you.

@aflashoffaith // have some pain

I know.

He was supposed to be shaping the next generation of shinobi, passing down the better parts of himself and teaching his students how to cope better than he could with the less than desirable ones. They were to learn from his mistakes, the mistakes of his sensei, from those that preceded them that had only drawn the world into war, unable to reach any sort of satisfactory answer themselves before simply passing the search along with vague hope that eventually things would become better. Someone else’s problem. Have a little faith and it will all work out.

There were times where it felt like all he’d managed to pass on were his failures though, Kakashi’s words sharp and aimed far more precisely than any blade Minato had ever placed into his hands. It’s nothing he doesn’t think himself, about himself, even if he tries to keep this perceived weakness from his remaining student and only allows his grief an audience with Kushina, something choking and heavy and never satisfied. 

Another added to the list, Kakashi ill equipped to deal with blame and guilt and heartache for the boy who was always more crybaby than soldier and the girl who loved him but loved her village more, far too young to be so terribly burdened with obligation. 

He should have been there. He should have been faster.

(What’s the point? What’s the point in gaining strength and speed when it’s never enough?  Will it ever be enough? Will I ever be enough, to stop this...?)

He had only been a little older than Kakashi was now when Jiraiya had shown his own failures and taught him that the life of a shinobi was far too often cold and unforgiving, that alcohol was a vice, a crutch, a habit he should never emulate when heroes took their own lives and friends were lost. (Sensei’s face had been stained red with drink and grief and the only thing he’d really said about Sakumo that night was to ignore the rumors and shameful gossip, to be better. To simply think of the man that had sometimes dropped by to idly talk about Minato’s progress and offer quiet encouragement to the generation that would do things better than theirs had, instead.)

When not long after that he had shown up with a little boy that had learned that same lesson far earlier than Minato had (too early, more poignantly, terribly) and told him that the village expected good things out of both of them, that it was time for him to step up and start being a teacher himself because Legendary Sannin had their own overbearing obligations and couldn’t always be there to pick up the slack.

I know, he thinks, wishing for all the world that there was something less pathetic to say as he reaches for Kakashi and pulls him into a firm embrace (that is unbefitting of a shinobi), as anger continues to flow out of his student, as hot as the tears that (he should not show) quickly soak into the front of Minato’s shirt. 

He should not coddle his students (has been reprimanded, even, for being too soft sometimes, for letting them bicker so freely in front of him, defiant) and he should be teaching them how to endure- but Minato is tired and Kakashi has never needed him to teach him the rules. He’s needed someone to teach him how to bend them.

@aflashoffaith​: fishes for a gremlin in a pile of ninken

“Minato-sensei!”

     It wasn’t a whine, because Kakashi wasn’t a child. He was just voicing his displeasure at being handled like one. He couldn’t control the pitch of his voice or that it hadn’t deepened yet. 

     Kakashi was still firmly holding Pakkun to his chest once Minato got a handle on him, looking up at his sensei with an annoyed expression. He had quite literally been laying down with the dogs before being so rudely interrupted. The rest of his Ninken still laid comfortably in a pile, deeming the blond to not be any real threat (traitors). 

“I told you I already ate today, and I don’t need a bath. I know how to take care of myself.”

“See, that’s the thing about meal times Kakashi, they come around a few times a day.” He’s pleased enough with the lack of much resistance though, something that suspiciously almost sounds like a huffed doggy laugh coming from the pile of still dozing ninken.

Minato tries to shift more into some sort of half crouch half squat instead of straightening back up once successful in his capture the Kakashi mission, hands moving to rest on his thighs just above his knees. The books all said it was important to get on a child’s level while talking to them, that it helped in making them feel secure and listened to and, well. He’s trying. Doing his best. Practicing research.