Time's up to figure it out

You can't say it's too late

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

It was a luxury to live this long. By the coming age of thirty-two, you're as much of an old prune as it was going to get. Besides the Hokage, living past your sixteenth birthday was an achievement within itself, the celebration not only being "sweet", but a marker for how long you've stood your ground in the world of shuriken and kunai. A few years pass, along with a few casualties (it's inevitable - you'll get used to it). Reaching the height of twenty-one is not only for the celebration of legal drinking, but a show-off of scars - them being your candles for the year. Make a wish because tomorrow is never guaranteed, is somewhat a bittersweet birthday motto in the nin world. You heard it throughout your extremely long life (of thirty-two years mind you) from when you could barely hold up all your body weight on two legs, let alone a gleaming katana.

So as I lay here, rain soaking through my once-thought-retired ANBU outfit, I can't help but wonder if this was really a luxury, a gift of some sort that I was supposed to appreciate open heartedly. Stepping back from the numerous gifts every year and the high-fives and the "ojiisan" cracks, thirty-two is a foul age. Witnessing each of your precious people's eyes become glassed over, their blood dripping onto your hands... comes with the package of being thirty-two. Being able to fill fifty memorial stones with names you've stolen, having blood permanently smeared upon your fingertips... is something that you have to learn to accept.

Being the fine old age of thirty-two, all the adolescent youngsters look up to you with a sort of unfathomable gleam of awe in their eye. Little kids tug on their mother's sleeves, whispering frantically that they want to - no, will - be like the infamous Copy-Nin one day, and getting an all-knowing smile from your former students... you can't help but desperately wish that they won't become like you. You fervently pray that their emotions and minds won't be tested to the limit, that they won't give up like you did...

The rain is getting harder now, big fat pelts collapsing against my twisted back. It's getting harder to breathe with this mask on, the tight fabric seemed like such a good idea all those years ago. If my hands would move, I'd pull it down, showing the world Hatake Kakashi for a final show. The right side of my face is planted into the sloppy mud, the gooey mass crusting onto my eyelashes and silver hair. My world has become enveloped in darkness due to my left eye being clamped shut. I can't afford to open it and view my surroundings to which I surveyed before hitting the dirt. My enemies' bodies lay a few meters south of me, my katana to my far left and my hitai to my immediate right, tantalizing me with it's attainable reach. If only these fingers weren't so tired, if only this body was a little younger...

"Come on, Kaka-sensei. You're not going to let your age finally catch up, are you?"

"HAHA, OJIISAN! I'm gonna beat you! Then you'll have to hand over that perverted book, remember?"

"You're not even going to try?"

If I concentrate and block out the searing pain in my right shoulder, I can see Sakura's concerned look etching worry lines on her not-so-wide forehead and slight tilt of her head, Naruto's triumphant glow surrounding him while he points an accusing finger at my kunai pouch, and Sasuke's disappointed gaze giving me a once-over, seeing if I have another ace up my fingerless gloves. Not this time, I afraid.

I try to lift my head from its muddy encasement to at least turn over to the right, but am greeted with a slippery slosh back to where I began. A heavy sigh racks through my creaking bones, an airy pain filling in the spaces of my ribs. I try to make a fist with my left hand, but all I am returned is a sharp agony gliding over my knuckles. So, this is that grand old feeling to have lived for so long? No wonder why shinobi never tended to stick around for long. It's quite tiring, really. A little feverish voice in the corner of my foggy mind tries to push me forward, urging that Konoha isn't that far (a couple hundred kilometers at best) and that I can't just lay here in the degrading mud. Hatake Kakashi will not die a lowly death of being drowned by wet dirt, it insists. Huh, the voice seems to be getting softer...

Lethargy is wavering over me, it's appealing serenity trying to win me over. Not yet. Just a little more time.

A deep rumble escapes the sky's chambers and seems to make the rain more persistent in getting me waterlogged. My left eye throbs in an dull ache and I can't even lift a hand to rub the pain away. A trickle of liquid escapes from my left temple and travels down my closed eyelid, taking a joyride along my jaw. Blood. My head is pounding while somewhere in the trenches of my mind, I'm trying to devise a plan to escape from this muddy prison.

Ah, the gracefulness of thirty-two.

Even as the torrents of wind blast the rain upon my limp figure, there is a deafening silence. What any shinobi would give to have their loved ones surround them in their final moments. Out here in the battle field, where no one can hear your last quivering breathes... It's quite lonely. But then again, I should be used to the loneliness of solo missions, of emotional-robot conditioning, of ANBU, but three stubborn accomplices of mine had to break through my emotional defense team. I can feel a soft, broken smile find its way upon my chapped lips. It hurts, oh how the pain seers throughout my face, but my nerve-endings must be tired since I don't seem to care.

At this point, someone is ought to ask me if I regret anything; any of the decisions I've made to get to this point where half my face is planted in the treacherous mud. My second nature reaction to this seemingly innocent query would to immediately respond a definite "no". In all honesty however, there are many things I regret doing, but I don't regret as to where I am today. I regret being an unemotional bastard until my early teen years and not realizing what ties I really had and how precious they really were until they were taken away. I regret killing my first child in ANBU and how I handled it (it wasn't a pretty sight seeing an ANBU vomit in the bushes and then proceed to sob against an oak tree). I regret not sealing off my emotions completely so the pain of loss wouldn't be so bad. I regret playing favorites with my only genin team. I regret getting close to them and how it angers me when I can't seem to push them away.

The list can go on from simple, incoherent things to life-changing decisions that marred my journey to an elite jounin. I don't regret a lot of my decisions however. I don't regret getting close with my former genin team when I see them smile at me from across the restaurant table. I don't regret teaching, no matter how fucked up the end result became thereafter. I don't regret reading my favorite books out in public despite the accusing shouts of "hentai" (mostly made by my favorite pink-haired kunoichi). I don't regret smiling in reassurance when situations seemed hopeless. I don't regret taking this mission.

I can't regret everything that's happened in my life. There's lots to be grateful for. After all, I have reached the prime old age of thirty-two.

My hands involuntarily clench in the slippery mud, sending shockwaves of jaw-gritting pain coursing throughout my body. My survival instincts try to hush my reassurances that I had a good run. It insists for my Sharingan to be released, to drag my body from its imprisonment, to not reminisce so soon. I try and retort and say I'm tired, I'm old, I'm done. It never did like to listen to me though.

My body refuses to stop despite the mind-blowing pain searing throughout it like a raging wildfire that licks up everything in its path. My hands flatten themselves upon the liquified ground while my numbed legs try and get friction upon my standard-issue shinobi sandals. I can imagine how my leg wrappings are sliding off my sore calves. With an unquenchable urge, my body tries with all its might to raise itself up from the pits of hell, tries to lift my right side of my face from the mud below. My arms quiver and quake as I feel my torso rising steadily from the ground. My right eye opens when rain begins to splatter across that side of my face once more. Everything surrounding me is foggy from not being able to see for so long.

The rising action stops once I'm in a push-up position, the sensation of it all seeming too familiar. My body is numb from the pain and I can only imagine how my insides must be drenched from internal bleeding. My breaths are labored and I can feel my arms begin to shake. That little voice in my mind is begging, pleading on its knees, for me not to give up. I shake my head and I can feel my feet starting to lose the little friction that they had.

"Oi, old man! I bet you can't do 1,000 one-fingered push-ups!"

"Dobe. Of course he can. You've seen him do almost 2,000 with Sakura on his back."

"Kakashi-sensei? Are you okay?"

The thin line of reality and fantasy is starting to shred, it seems. The concerned look from Sakura is overwhelming with its realism. The bickering from Naruto and Sasuke is almost too perfect to be replicated. I close my eyes and I can feel my hands slipping beneath me.

"OI, OI! You can't fall asleep now on me Kaka-sensei! That would mean you forfeit!"

Naruto's lip is construed into a pout, displaying his disappointment that I won't be able to entertain him any longer.

"Shut up dobe. Can't you see he's completely wasted?"

Sasuke's disapproving tone resounds in my mind, underlying his general discontentment that his former sensei won't be doing as many push-ups as he thought he would.

"Come on, Kakashi-sensei! Can't you do one more?"

No, I can't. My fingers finally slip from their weak grasp upon the mud, sending me crashing down onto the ground once more. Too tired and drained to let out a cry of pain as I feel bones that were on the brink of breaking shatter, I resign into the mud. My right side of my face is once again shrouded in the sloppy substance. I sigh again, not feeling the repercussions of my physical actions anymore. It was a good try.

I won't last that long, I know. Some may be unnerved by knowing that their untimely death has finally found itself wrapping its clutches around their neck, but I am not. It's okay. Perhaps some lay in the mud with no one beside them. I, at least, have my apparitions egging me on until the end finally comes. I hope it's quick and it'll stop this throbbing in my left eye.

Thirty-two years is a long time and I've overstayed my welcome in the shinobi world. I've had my fill of loss, of pain, joy, excitement and accomplishment. I've seen the mighty days of Yondaime and the final return of Tsunade, the greatest medic-nin probably out there. I raised (well, I'd like to think I raised...) three ninja with mind-numbing potential that will probably go on to do great things in their lives. I've seen the future Hokage eat ramen at a world-record pace, the last Uchiha break away from the devil and a lovely sakura tree that has finally bloomed. Thirty-two years have flew by and I'm selfish to think that I wish it wouldn't end here.

"Then get up, ojiisan! You know over a thousand and one jutsus. USE ONE!"

"Please Kaka-sensei..."

I only mentally shake my head at them (it hurts to much to actually follow through with the gesture) and smile sadly. I place a hand on Naruto's shoulder as defiant tears trace his whiskered scars. I give him an eye-crease and a tilt of my head as I try to tell him that he'll have to finish those push-ups for me. He won't listen though as he pushes my hand away and shakes his head vigorously, screaming at me to not give up. I let him. Turning to Sasuke, I take in his crossed arms and the piercing glare he sends my way. I send my own unreadable stare back and turn away. I say I'm sorry for letting him down.

Sakura buries her face into her hands, sobs wracking her small frame. I put my hand upon her head and she looks up at me with her swollen, puffy emerald eyes. My heart squeezes as her bottom lip trembles. I ruffle her hair quietly. I tell Sakura that it's alright (even though it's horribly wrong).

I'm suddenly thrown out of my illusion and back into the cold rain that still whips against my back. My breath is starting to come out in wheezes and I squeeze my eyes shut as a foreign liquid starts to leak from them. I bite my tongue, causing a metallic taste to fill my mouth once more and I almost choke from the memories it stirs. My fists clench once more and they shake as the liquid cascades down my still-covered face. At once they stop and I'm left with a hollow feeling.

Thirty-two isn't supposed to feel this way.

"Kakashi-sensei!"

Thirty-two was supposed to be a gift.

"Damnit. Someone get a stretcher!"

Thirty-two was supposed to be celebrated.

"Please hold on Kaka-sensei..."

Thirty-two was supposed to be something to brag about.

"Just hold my hand, sensei. Don't close your eyes!"

Suddenly I can't feel the rain. It's getting dark. I wonder if they'll find my body and shake their heads in disapproval. I was supposed to be the Great Copy-Nin Kakashi. I was supposed to die with honor. Not with mud hiding half my face. Maybe they'll see through the mud stains and smile that I carried out my duty until the end. I hope that they will. I would like that...

It's dark.

That deathly lethargy is creeping towards me once more. I think I'll give in. I'm pretty tired. It'll be nice to rest a bit.

A sigh escapes me and I can feel a warm pressure on my hand. Which one, I don't know. That little voice pipes up once more just before a warm blanket of serenity is place upon my shivering body.

Thirty-two...isn't that old.

I agree.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Believe me, it's alright

It's so easy after all

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

A/N: Yeah.. I couldn't resist another one-shot. I may continue this, seeing that it seems a group of people (actually the same group that Kakashi was reminiscing about) stumbled upon him. I don't know.

So, anyway, this is very angsty and I'm sorry for pretty much killing Kakashi. I love him dearly but this little bugger had to be written. I wrote this actually while listening to Some Say by Sum 41. I think of 'Kashi-kun whenever I listen to it. Don't ask me why since I still scratch my head whenever his masked face pops into my head.

Don't worry, the second chapter of Oxygen will be up soon. Please review, I'd love to here what you think about my first attempt at first-person POV.

Thanks for reading.

- - H. 92