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Love had always been an unfathomable thing- an illusion flickering at the edge of Kakashi's grasp. It had always been something distant. It had been something never meant for him. Yet, for a fleeting time, he had believed. He had allowed himself to feel it, to shape his world around it. Around her .
Now, that same love twisted inside him, entwined with the bitter tendrils of betrayal. Y/N had not just forsaken Konoha the day she vanished into the shadows- she had forsaken him .
And yet, despite it all, he had never truly let her go.
The wind carried a familiar presence, a whisper of chakra that sent every nerve in his body alight. He knew before he even turned. Before his lone eye landed on the black-and-red cloak swaying in the dusk. Before the straw hat tilted just enough for those hauntingly familiar y/e/c orbs to lock onto his own.
It was her.
His breath stilled, but his grip on the kunai at his side remained firm.
She was just beyond the outskirts of the village- too close. Too much of a threat. Yet, as she stood there, tension brimming between them like a taut wire on the verge of snapping, Kakashi couldn't bring himself to act.
Y/N’s fingers twitched around the weapon in her grasp. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she willed herself to breathe evenly, to remain unmoved by the silver-haired shinobi standing before her. But it was futile.
Seeing him again after all these years was an agony that seared and twisted in her chest.
His face, though half-covered as always, was etched into her memories- every softened gaze, every moment of quiet understanding. A lifetime ago, she might have run to him, thrown herself into his arms and let herself believe in something foolishly tender.
But that time was long gone.
And yet, she hesitated.
Kakashi caught it. The slightest falter in her breath. The clench of her jaw. The way she gripped her kunai as if it could anchor her to the path she had chosen.
He should have attacked. Should have put an end to it then and there- that fleeting moment of her hesitation. But all he could do was stare at her, at the woman who had left him behind with nothing but unanswered questions and wounds that had never quite healed.
“Y/N,” he finally said, voice low, edged with something unspoken. A plea. A warning.
Her name on his lips nearly shattered her resolve.
She swallowed hard, forcing steel into her spine. “Kakashi.”
Just his name. Just that. But it felt like a wound being torn open all over again.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence, thick with everything they had never said. Suffocating with everything they had lost.
And in that silence, the war between duty and desire raged on.
The battle had been inevitable.
From the moment their eyes met, the weight of the past pressing between them like an unseen force, Kakashi had known there would be no turning back.
Y/N was a traitor. A rogue shinobi. An Akatsuki operative.
And yet, none of that stopped his hands from shaking as he struck the final blow.
Her body gave out before him, knees buckling as the kunai slipped from her grasp, clattering uselessly against the dirt. He caught her without thinking, instinct overriding reason. The same arms that had once pulled her close in whispered moments of trust cradled her in ruin.
Blood bloomed across her cloak, dark and damning, seeping into his gloves as he lowered her gently to the ground. His own chest ached- not from injury, but from something far crueler.
She had always been strong. Always quick. But she had hesitated.
For him .
“Kakashi…” Her voice was barely above a whisper, strained and fleeting.
“Don’t talk,” he said quickly, but it lacked its usual sharpness. It almost sounded like please don’t leave me.
A weak chuckle slipped from her lips, though it was laced with pain. “Still… always the one giving orders.”
His fingers clenched against her cooling skin. He didn’t know what to do. His mind screamed at him to move, to try to stop the inevitable, but he had seen enough death to recognize when the fight was over.
“I- ” His throat tightened, the words foreign and unfamiliar, even now.
Y/N’s gaze flickered, those y/e/c eyes dulling, but her lips twitched, as if she knew what he couldn’t say.
“You were always so slow, Kakashi.”
A breath. A pause.
Then, softer. Sadder.
“I loved you. Always will.”
Something inside him shattered.
The world around them blurred, fading into meaningless noise. The ache in his chest became unbearable, the weight of everything unsaid, everything lost, crushing him beneath its grip.
His mask had always been a shield, a barrier to keep the world from seeing too much, from knowing too much. But now, with her slipping away in his arms, it was useless.
He bent his head, forehead pressing against hers, his breath unsteady.
“…I know,” he finally whispered, and his voice broke along with him.