Shuddering as he wakes from a nightmarish swirl of memories - lightning, blood, falling rock, all darkness and screaming and tears - Kakashi draws himself up, leaning against the trunk of one of the trees surrounding their camp. He looks over the quiet little heaps of his genin sleeping - barely more than pups, for all their skill and their ambitions; for all they think of themselves - and his heart wrenches painfully, his breath catching in his throat.

He never wanted them, but they're his now, and he only desperately hopes he won't lose them . . . as he's lost almost everyone else.