When Kakashi was younger he had a soulmate. He knew because he could feel their emotions the way he was supposed to. Not always; it was only the extreme emotions that bled through the tenuous connection. He could feel when they were very angry or very happy. It bothered him that they were often very sad. If he 'd known who it was back then, he would have found them and made whatever had hurt them go away. Even at a young age Kakashi had been strong.

Throughout some of his childhood Kakashi had noticed a pattern. His soulmate often felt anger or fear at the same time that he did. He wondered then if it might have something to do with them being so in sync with each other or if it was only coincidence that the events of their days matched up so well. It was just strange that every time he got in to an argument with Obito they also felt angry and every time Rin started flirting with him they also felt annoyed. It never occurred to him that perhaps they might be experiencing the same emotions because they were experiencing the same events together.

On the day he lost Obito, Kakashi had felt the boy 's pain. He had woken from his blow to the head to feel it rippling through his mind, making him grit his teeth to bite back the screams. When his eyes fell upon Obito it had all come crashing down on him. His soulmate had been there in front of him all this time and he had never known. And now his soulmate lay dying, crushed and bleeding under a boulder that had been meant for him. When the cave continued to collapse Kakashi had pulled Rin to safety and the two of them escaped together, but Kakashi had felt Obito 's pain for a long time afterwards. It had taken him over an hour to die. Kakashi had wished he could die in his place.

In the months that followed Kakashi 's emotions were all over the place. He felt like he was going out of his head, unable to concentrate, feeling strange things at strange times. It was as if his brain were creating the ghosts of emotions that Obito should be feeling as a strange method of coping with the loss of a soulmate he had never gotten to be with. He felt himself slipping more and more until things culminated during the mission that cost him Rin. As he stared in to her eyes, his arm through her chest, his emotions were so intense and varied that he couldn 't process them all. He felt despair, confusion, helplessness,

rage

. As she whispered his name and fell backwards, already dead, Kakashi 's mind overloaded and for a while he blacked out. When he came to the enemy were no more and he lay surrounded by blood and corpses.

As if that short-circuit had finally jolted the echoes of emotions from him, all Kakashi felt after that was numb. He felt empty inside and out. Things worsened a year later when he lost Minato-sensei. Everything and everyone that had ever been able to evoke emotion from him had slipped through his fingers one by one, leaving him to go on alone with a dead heart.

Life wasn 't happy when he could feel nothing, but in some ways it was easier. It was easier to do his job when he didn 't care. It was easier to end a life when he didn 't feel. It was easier to withstand torture when he couldn 't hurt. When he felt anything it was muted, quiet. He would be a little annoyed when his plans went wrong. He would be a little worried when his ANBU comrades were in danger. They were, after all, his responsibility and he had made it a personal mission to keep as many soldiers alive as possible. So that they could continue to fight for the village of course.

Meeting his genin team was like ripping a bandage off of a wound that had never closed. Kakashi looked at his three little students and saw the faces that were frozen in a photograph by his bedside. Being around them brought emotions back to him that he had thought were beyond his reach forever. He began to feel again. It was painful. It was also very worth it. Even after Sasuke betrayed them and left the village, having Naruto and Sakura in his life was like having a pair of suns that he could warm himself by when the days got cold and lonely.

As the fourth shinobi war crested and broke its waves of fear across the shinobi nations, Kakashi realized that he felt something that he had not felt since he had lost his soulmate. He felt love. He loved his students and he loved his friends. He would do anything ' give anything ' to keep them alive. As he marched to battle at the head of the Third Division he vowed to do everything he could to protect the few that he had left.

As the skirmishes wore on and he joined Naruto in battle against the one who called himself Tobi, Kakashi felt a strange mix of the numbness from his younger years and the newer, warmer emotions that he had rediscovered. Flashes of anger and despair confused him but there was little time to be distracted. Not when the final prize of this battle was the fate of the world itself.

And then the mask fell away and Kakashi could not have described how he felt, not with an entire dictionary full of words. As pain and hurt and confusion tore through him, paralyzing his body, he could see Obito wince. Obito, who should be dead. Obito who was trying to destroy the world. Obito, who looked at him and he could feel the anger building up and flooding the connection he had thought broken years ago.

They clashed. They fought the way they used to, bringing all of their jutsu and skill to bear. Except this time Kakashi found that his heart simply wasn 't in it. He had no desire to defeat Obito, only to stop him from putting his insane plans in to action. It was his reluctance that doomed them.

Kakashi was smart. He could put things together from the clues given to him. He could tell that Obito, unlike him, had never realized who his true soulmate was. Rin 's death had caused them both pain and emptied both of their hearts, and Kakashi had spent the rest of his life feeling things only faintly, not strongly enough for it to be felt by the other. It seemed that the discovery of Kakashi having been his soulmate, not their other teammate, was not being handled well.

A revived Uchiha Madara was terrifying. Otsutsuki Kaguya was beautiful and terrifying. The Infinite Tsukuyomi was beyond all comprehension. Still Kakashi forced his tired body and weeping mind to fight on. His chest felt like it was on a rollercoaster as at first it seemed that Obito was dead again, then he was alive to help them fight. Then he was hopping dimensions with Sakura. Then finally, for the first time since they were twelve years old, Kakashi and Obito stood side by side, fighting together towards a common goal.

When the bone spear pierced Obito 's body, Kakashi felt it in his own. He watched the man he should have lived a life with crumble to ash, his heart crumbling with him. Obito 's last words were for Naruto, not him, and somehow that was what hurt the most. Though they had reconciled in the end, it seemed that he had truly never meant anything special to his other half.

Or so he thought. He could barely react as the still warm ashes of his soulmate suddenly began to emit a familiar chakra and he found himself in a limbo state similar to the one he had met his father in, on the day he had nearly died. There, he and Obito were able to have the final words that there hadn 't been time for before. Kakashi felt his soulmate 's chakra flooding through his system as, for the last time, he wielded his borrowed Sharingan. It was an incredible sensation. For just that one short moment in time they were completely one with each other.

Yet, like all of the other good things in Kakashi 's life, it ended too soon. Obito was passing on and he told Kakashi not to hurry. They were able to say their final goodbyes as friends. It was better than their last parting, which he was thankful for, but still he mourned for what they could have had.

As he watched Obito fade from his sight and felt his chakra fade from his body, Kakashi felt a strange dichotomy within himself. He felt hollower and lonelier than ever before in his life. His soulmate was truly gone this time and circumstances had stolen what happiness should have been theirs. Yet, he also felt light, open,

free

. In the end Obito had forgiven him. In the end he still had friends and precious students. His life would go on without an epic tale of passion. He would never experience the fulfillment that he read about in his romance novels. But that did not mean that it would be empty. It wasn 't everything, but it was enough. And when he finally lay his head down to rest he knew Obito was waiting for him. They would have the rest of eternity to spend together.