A Hole in One's Heart [Kakashi Hatake]

Chapter 40: Shippuden

The first chapter of Shippuden :) Enjoy!

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     Naruto was gone from the village for about two and a half years. I had spent most of my time with Sakura under Lady Tsunade; we were both fully fledged medical ninja now. About six months ago, I had finally become jounin. The elders had been a little hesitant to give me the position because of my situation, but Lady Tsunade put her foot down, claiming that it would a waste of my abilities to keep me at chunin for any longer. During that time, I returned to my old social self; I was good friends with many of the jounin and chunin now. It felt good to have close relationships again... I was especially close to Sakura; she pretty much lived in my apartment when we weren't training or off on missions. Also, I had recently reconnected with Hansuke Chisai, who I had become good friends with while escorting Shiokarai Asari. He had been on lots of missions after becoming a Leaf Ninja. He was instated as a chunin right before the Sound and Sand's attack on the village and had filled a newly vacant spot on a busy team. Recently, he had left missions behind to become a student-teacher for Iruka and was hoping to have his own Academy class soon. He would practically glow with excitement when he talked about his students, and he claimed that the best part was that he was taller than all of them, something that he wasn't used to being five foot even. However, Sakura and I were both saddened by how little we saw of Kakashi. Sakura because she enjoyed the company of her sensei and me... Well, you know. He was out on mission after mission. After the large number of ninja lost during the Sound and Sand's joint attack on the Leaf during the Chunin Exams, Tsunade was running us all like a slave driver, and Kakashi was never in the village anymore. When he wasn't on an A or S-ranked mission, he was getting some well earned sleep. It got kind of lonely without him, but not seeing him much did wonders for me being able to keep my emotions in check whenever we were around each other.

     I got up very early in the morning with a monstrous yawn. Pulling myself out of the comfort of my futon, I looked at my apartment. I still lived in the same one as when I moved to the village, and it really hadn't changed much over the years. The only big difference was that wall behind my bed and the wall opposite the kitchen area were both covered in drawings now. I had actually run out of room on those two walls as well. I didn't want my apartment to look like an art gallery that got bombed so I had lots of portfolios filled with my other drawings leaning up against my easel. My eyes wandered over to one of the older drawings on the wall, it was the old genin of Team 7, the drawing that Kakashi had really liked. Sasuke was leaning against a tree in boredom, the hair in the back of his head sticking up like a fowl's plumage, and Naruto and Sakura were arguing next to him. It was a bitter sweet drawing. Team 7 had taken me in when I was alone and lost in the world that I currently resided in, but now those genin were no more. Naruto was gone training with Jiraiya and would probably come back totally different. Sakura was no longer the love-struck genin; she was now a skilled chunin and medical-nin, and I was very proud of her. And Sasuke... He had left the village to gain more power in his quest to kill his brother, Itachi. I understood the drive for revenge he felt since not a day would go by without me wishing that my parents hadn't been killed, but I could not accept his decision to abandon everyone who cared about him just to kill a single person. I turned away from the picture; I really didn't feel like starting off my day in a sad mood.

     Putting on my ninja gear, I got ready to leave for the day: a run, training with the Hyugas, and then sorting paperwork for the Hokage. Lady Tsunade would definitely have lots of work for me to do, and I really didn't want to be late or I'd be sorting medical files until midnight. I internally cringed at that possibility. I looked at the mirror with a small smile; I really liked the ninja gear that I had started wearing when I had become jounin. My hair had gotten much longer, and I wore it in a long French braid down my back with my forehead protector still in its usual place. I had on my dark green chunin vest and light green shirt with large, flared sleeves underneath. This was coupled with tight ninja pants that were so dark blue that they were almost black and dark brown sandals that came up to just below my knees. With a small smile, I shoved my keys into a pocket on the inside of my vest and jumped out my window. Some things never change, and I still preferred just jumping out of my window to the ground below over walking down all of those stairs. My fellow tenants were used to my weird behavior by now and would just smile and wave as I flew by their windows on my way towards the ground. It was very early in the morning, and I went for a long, long run ending at the Hyuga compound.