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The thing people are most incredulous about, at least the ones with a more philosophical bent, is the concept of a five year old killing. How is it possible for a child to be a killer so young, to face death before they could possibly comprehend the concept?
This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. You’re five years old, so what? You understand what death is. People say that understanding takes experience, what experience?
You killed your mother when you were born. That’s plenty of experience.
Death is a scent of a person you’ve never met that makes you, on an instinctual level, feel warm and safe and home and fills you with longing for what you can never have, lingering in the corners of your house and fading ever so slowly, until you can’t quite be sure if you’re imagining it, and you’re terrified that you’ll forget. Death is the sadness in your father’s eyes when he looks at you sometimes and sees a ghost of her, the deep, deep ugly grieving that fills your home sometimes so that you feel that you might choke on it. Death is an empty space. The shattered, jagged edges of what should be whole.
So you understand the weight of it. The concept of death is such a huge thing, so much bigger than you are. But you belong to a ninja village and killing is what you do. They can say that you should wait a few years, like all the other children, but you have never been like other children, and you are ready and capable to fight now. Your mother was once a shinobi, and now she is an empty space, so it is your duty to fill it. And you are terrified of dying, of course you are, you don’t want to be a lingering whisper of a scent in a house that is too empty and a brokenness in your father’s eyes. But as scared as you are of leaving, you are much, much more afraid of being left behind.
You are five years and seven months old when you kill for the first time.
The wind is blowing ever so gently perpendicular to both of you and you don’t realize he’s there until you’ ve almost reached him. His back is to you and you recognize his clan symbol. He’s an enemy chunin and you have no hope of fighting him, you should turn and run, your feet absolutely silent, and tell Minato Sensei. But the wind is shifting in the enemy shinobi’s favor and he’s a scent tracker too, and you know if he smells you you’re dead. You realize all of this in a split second, and as wind turns you leap forwards, kunai in hand.
Blood leaves his throat and covers you, seeping through your mask. He falls to the ground and you land in a crouch facing him, because you know better than to turn your back on the enemy, but he is dead. You wonder if he has a wife, if he has a kid back in Iwa who will know him by empty spaces and a scent fading slowly from their house.
Minato Sensei finds you there, trembling ever so slightly in the blood. “Oh, Kakashi,” he says.
He tells you he’s sorry, even though it’s not his fault, and that it’s alright to be upset. You tell him you’re a shinobi, not a baby, and that you knew what you were doing when you entered the academy, and your voice is empty. He doesn’t try to argue with you after that, which is good of him, but he keeps his hand on your head as you walk, all the way back to your campsite. You’re grateful. It feels nice even though everything has gone sort of fuzzy and the only thing that’s real is the smell of blood clogging your mask. You’ll have to switch it out for a fresh one later or you won’t be good for anything.